160 réponses à ce sujet

[Praetor Knight]

DukeOfNukes wrote...

The first game seemed so well thought out and planned...it's a shame the 2nd had to tear it all down, and the 3rd appears like it will do it further.

I'd recommend checking out Mesina's video or thread that I've linked above.

[Cancer Puppet]

IMO, the reason for the reaper's "impatience" is that someone at bioware didn't want to make the hard choice about me2. Namely, that even if successful, your (Shepard's) mission, the one that you've been playing 40 hours to accomplish, needed to amount to little more than a hollow victory.

I understand their decision. After all, who wants to pay 60 bucks so that they can play a game they'll inevitably lose? Not to over use the oft drawn comparison, but...take star wars for example. It's not all sunshine and bunnies at the end of the second act. The bad guys win the battle. That is what part three is for; it's so the good guys can turn the tide and win the war.

Round two - good guys lose. That's how many classic stories, and not just SW, work. But it's not how games work, and there's the rub. That mistake was addressed in the arrival dlc, but that only caused more head scratching because it doesn't make sense after the fact.

It is my sincere hope that if bioware decides to remake the ME series somewhere down the line, that whoever is in charge has the courage to be willing to correct narrative missteps instead of having them remain in the name of being faithful to the original material.

[Jkol1]

Sovereign calls each reaper a nation unto itself. In other words, individuals. Why assume that they are a single unified, monolithic evil?

Perhaps Sovereign tried to Zerg the Citadel to save face. As the sole observer of the galaxy, letting the protheans re-wire the citadel is its fault. If Sovereign knew that Harbinger was bringing the cavalry over the long haul it might have been rushing to open the citadel first to preserve influence and position in the Reaper hierarchy.

Or perhaps flying in directly is a huge gamble and a power play by Harbinger. We still don't know the price they paid for that action and for all we know the only reason it works is for narrative purposes. Me3 would be lame if the Reapers 'ran out of gas' in dark space.

As for the collectors, the mission on their ship suggests a capacity for living cargo that could only be satiated at Earth regarding humans. I highly doubt that a single collector cruiser was meant to hit Earth alone. Is it possible that they were simply laying the keel of the Human Reaper in advance of full scale operations once the invasion began? Perhaps Harbinger wanted the collectors to cherry pick premium human DNA to give birth to a powerful ally before any rivals got a crack at it?

[whywhywhywhy]

Memmahkth wrote...

Do we know when the reapers began their flight back from Dark Space?  Do we know how fast they're able to move?  Do they have a back up mass relay throughout dark space to help them traverse it faster?  There's much we do not know about dark space or how the reapers operate.  Just that they're far more advanced than we are.

It doesn't really matter.  Either they are fast or slow.  If they are fast then it's questionable why they would need the Citadel Relay though it is notably the preffered method.  Citadel plan failed ok fly over.  If they are slow or considerably slower then fast ?  Then the Citadel becomes even more important either way it's irrelevant because if they had the Alpha relay they should of went through it a long time again.

Memmahkth wrote...
Why risk the attack on the citadel in the first place?  This is the way it has always been done and they figured victory was assured?  Why bother waiting 4 more years, when you can surprise attack the citadel now.  Sovereign failed, but they figured we still had the alpha relay.  If he succeeds, then we don't need the alpha relay.

It wasn't 4 years.  The Protheans altered the keepers so they wouldn't respond to the signal.  50,000 years past and one of the Reapers tries to activate the citadel and it doesn't work.  Since then the Reapers or their vanguard(s) have been searching for a way.  We know from Vigil that Saren was not the first but one of many reaper agents.  The Rachni were discovered according to the codex 2000 years before present day in ME1 and it started the Rachni Warss.  An event verified to be caused by the Reapers from the Rachni Queen.  She verifies that memories were pasted to her and that Sheperd fights against those responsible.  So thought we don't have a exact timeline I think we can determine it's a lot longer then 4 years.

Memmahkth wrote...
Why are 4 more years that important?  If Sovereign does not attack the citadel, then he has to make sure Saren and him and the Geth fleet can travel throughout the galaxy destroying every single Prothean discovery as they cannot risk there being more discoveries of back door conduits or even plans to a weapon.  Not to mention if the council were to see Sovereign and the Geth fleet, they'd mobilise and galvanise the galactic community.

Your way makes more sense I have no problems with this.  But again it was longer then 4 years.

Memmahkth wrote...
There are a whole bunch of ifs on either side of the fence.  I choose to suspend my disbelief with the events as they have unfolded.  I look forward to ME3, and I also look forward to more clarification.  I think my biggest problem wtih ME2, was information coming back to me from the first game that I already knew (there to help people that did not play the first game).  Rather than furthering my understanding and knowledge, I had to sift through what was supposed to be there for new gamers and what is new for people that had played the first game.

They won't be able to explain it without some cheesy explainations as they can make it to be whatever they want.  Too many plotholes exist for it to be wrapped up nicely.

Modifié par whywhywhywhy, 20 juillet 2011 - 09:13 .

[whywhywhywhy]

Cancer Puppet wrote...

IMO, the reason for the reaper's "impatience" is that someone at bioware didn't want to make the hard choice about me2. Namely, that even if successful, your (Shepard's) mission, the one that you've been playing 40 hours to accomplish, needed to amount to little more than a hollow victory.

I understand their decision. After all, who wants to pay 60 bucks so that they can play a game they'll inevitably lose? Not to over use the oft drawn comparison, but...take star wars for example. It's not all sunshine and bunnies at the end of the second act. The bad guys win the battle. That is what part three is for; it's so the good guys can turn the tide and win the war.

Round two - good guys lose. That's how many classic stories, and not just SW, work. But it's not how games work, and there's the rub. That mistake was addressed in the arrival dlc, but that only caused more head scratching because it doesn't make sense after the fact.

It is my sincere hope that if bioware decides to remake the ME series somewhere down the line, that whoever is in charge has the courage to be willing to correct narrative missteps instead of having them remain in the name of being faithful to the original material.

agreed

[utdan]

Memmahkth wrote...

whoISthatgirl wrote...

The only problem i have is why did sovereign wait 1000 years between the rachni wars and his attack in me1? My idea on how everything else makes sense relies on the hybernating reapers needing a signal from either the citadel being activated or in this case the death of Sovereign to wake them up.

Do we know for sure Sovereign was behind the rachni wars?  We can assume the reapers were involved in the souring of the rachni song, but we cannot say that Sovereign was behind it (yet).  He could have been, I'm not saying one way or the other is correct.

The only thing we do know, is that Sovereign needed an agent within the galactic community to figure out why the keepers were not responding to the signal on the citadel.  Whether that signal came from Sovereign, or the reapers out in Dark Space we do not know that either (or do we and I've just missed something?)

I agree with most of what you say/think, with a few exceptions.  But overall, I can't really find fault with what you're thinking.  It seems consistent.  Good job  

Thanks:)

To be honest I've not seen anything in-game that says it was definitely Sovereign that indoctrinated the Rachni and because they only attacked after the Salarians opened a relay to rachni space i figured they had been indoctrinated during the prothean extinction and some how survived until then. I've just read that many posts on here saying he was behind it I'd assumed i'd missed something.  

[sp0ck 06]

This is all speculation. We barely know anything about the Reapers.

-We don't know their motivations
-We don't know where they came from
-We don't know how many they are
-We don't know the full extent of their interest in humanity
-We don't know how to stop them
-We seem to know how they "reproduce"

We know the Reapers are these billion year old organic-machine hybrids who systematically exterminate/harvest intelligent life approx every 50k years. We don't know why. Why every 50k years? Why not kill all life? Why do the Reapers feel the need to reproduce?

Answers to some of those questions might explain their seeming impatience, as well as a lot of the other things folks attribute to "bad writing" or "lol ea wants gears of war effeckt lmao." Such as the nature of the Collectors work.

[nhsk]

Because with the current rate of technological achievement in 100 or 200 years Organics could very well have out-teched the Reapers.
Just look at how fast tech develops today with computers aiding scientists.

[Pride Demon]

Ok... Here's my two cents...

Dudeman315 wrote...

This just bothered me, but why did soverign try to activate the citidel relay at all?

Aside from the much talked about beheading of the galactic community (which some apparently consider trivial), there are two less discussed (but in my opinion much more important) benefits about taking over the Citadel:

- They can datamine the Citadel Archives for the locations of the populated planets. Harvesting takes a mindboggingly LONG time, being capable of pinpointing your targets rather than having to manually search every possible system makes it more practical and efficient;

- The Citadel is the center of the Relay network: from there they are said (by Vigil) to alter the Mass relays signals, allowing them to isolate each cluster (basically every relay becomes like the Omega 4 one, only working properly if you insert the right code, which I guess the IFF carries). Lo and behold, those pesky organics can no longer send reinforcements to one another, every cluster is defended only by those forces that happened to be there at the time of relay reprogramming, a divided force is weaker than a cohesive one... This strategy is called "Divide et Impera", look it up...

Dudeman315 wrote...

And why tip your tentacle with abducting human colonies, Harbringer, when you know you wouldn't finish reaper baby until after your buddies arrive?

Because it's all gain no loss? NO ONE ever figured out the Collector/Reaper connection besides Cerberus and the SB (the first is a terrorist group no one would believe and the latter allied himself with them), Shepard is the only one that was ever capable of stopping one of their abductions, and had he/she stayed dead like nature would dictate he/she should have (you can't blame Harby for not knowing about the Lazarus Project) that would not have happened...

No one knew the Collectors were behind the kidnappings till Shepard found out (even TIM was just suspecting it), and even if they were to be caught red-handed, the Collectors are enigmatic at best, as are their motivations (they had already been regularly kidnapping people for centuries before the story of ME begun and no one bothered to discover why)...
So I seriously doubt people would see the Collectors and go "Giant Humanoid Bugs are kidnapping people! That obviously means giant Cthulu starships from outer space are about to come to harvest us! We are Doomed! Doomed, me tells ya!"

Ultimately, like I said, harvesting takes a LONG time, can you relly blame the reapers for trying to get a bit of a head start?
Here's what I wrote about this in another thread...

The reasoning is similar to that of a man having to dust a three stories
high building and being late... Would he rather have to do all the work
by himself later still or rather have some friends dust at least the
first floor so by the time he actually arrives some of the work is done?

Dudeman315 wrote...
Why are reapers so impatient?

They aren't... If the Rachni queen is to be believed this cycle is already 2000 years overdue to say the least (that's roughly when the Rachni Wars occurred), given Sovvie would have had no reason to start indoctrinating an army of bugs had the Keepers answered the call, we can theorize the cycle actually had been overdue for quite some even when the Rachni Wars started...

They're careful planners, the reason they have to resort to plans that lack finesse is that they are running out of options (and time)...

marshalleck wrote...

When Citadel was first discovered unresponsive, why not

A) Fly back to Alpha relay
Use Alpha relay to jump directly to the Citadel
C) Annihilate unsuspecting Citadel defenses, proceed with extinction

Good plan, with a few problems...

First, OP complains the Reapers are being way too impatient and are rushing things, and you propose a plan that involves them rushing even more, litterally jumping in the unknown without any idea why the Citadel didn't work in the first place? Didn't Vigil more or less stated Reapers "fear" the unknown and do everything in their power to plan ahead?

Second, the Alpha Relay is in Batarian space, a place known for having spy satellites everywhere...
Now, a Dreadnaught deliberately manipulating a relay is something I think would attract the attention of Batarian forces...

Third, the Citadel can close itself when in danger, if they shut the proverbial door in Sovvie's face what can he do but to stand there taking fire waiting for them to reopen (Sovvie: I will huff and I will puff and I will blow you Citadel in! XD)? The only reason Sovvie managed to get inside during ME1 was that he had an insider (Saren) that took control of the station and killed the C-sec officers responsible for closing the Citadel arms...

Fourth, even if we assume Sovvie had managed to get inside and attach itself to the Citadel nothing would have happened, since apparently the Prothean modifications on the Citadel signals require someone to activate the Citadel from the central console and THEN give control over to Sovvie (that's what Saren was doing when you stop him)...
Since after the tampering to activate the Citadel one would require:
- A copy of the override program, like the one Vigil gives Shepard...
- An understanding of Prothean to run said program...
I find it hard Sovvie could have succeeded by just jumping at the Citadel without preparation...

iakus wrote...
The impression I got was that the Alpha relay was a primary relay.

The Alpha relay is a secondary one: small radius, can connect to any relay in said radius... Using advanced commands however (again like the IFF), its possible to amplify said radius (maybe even as to become the galaxy's diameter, we don't know for certain, though Kenson did say "Everywhere in the Galaxy"...).
Basically you obtain a relay that can connect to any other relay  in existence (it's a one way trip though, as the others work normally), making it ideal for reaching everywhere in an istant and hitting strategic locations all at once...

IsaacShep wrote...
Frankly, the Human-Reaper doesn't seem to have any special purpouse
outside of their standard reproduction-procedure. The Collectores began
evaluating the genetic material of the galactic races even before the
events in ME1. It seems that the Reapers would've began building a new
Reaper one way or another and the entire goal of ME2 was just preventing
more people from dying (by being captured by the Collectors) while
waiting for the Reapers' arrival.

Agreed. I wrote something to this extent in another thread...
It's my opinion people put way too much importance in the larva...

All in all it's hard to define what's right or wrong since we actually know very little about Reaper motivations...
Instead of shouting "plothole" or "bad writing" why don't we wait and see whether the story makes sense AFTER it's complete... At least if you still don't think it makes sense you'll have all the proof you'll need...

Modifié par Pride Demon, 20 juillet 2011 - 09:53 .

[Cancer Puppet]

If I were Soveriegn, I would have contacted the asari & salarians on the citadel, pretended to be a nice, benevolent AI starship (this was before AI was considered a threat), waited for an opportunity to dock with the citadel, and once inside the arms of the station...well, let's just say I'd show Zim a thing or two about invading.

[Thrombin]

Someone wondered why they couldn't just use the Citadel like a normal relay and just jump to it remotely. My thinking is that that would require the Citadel relay to be powered up. There is no way that the races of the Galaxy wouldn't detect it and realize what it was if it was powered up and active. Thus the signal is required to tell the keepers to power it up when the time is right.

Someone wondered why the Reapers couldn't be spotted by telescopes. Given that they've been around for millions of years they should show up at some point. The way I see it, they aren't giving off energy emissions when they're in hibernation and they're not near any celestial bodies to alter their gravity. If they are sufficiently far out and well positioned they can avoid blocking light from other galaxies beyond them. The only time they might show up is if they fire up their FTL drives. If they use the Citadel relay they won't need to do this. If they're forced to come in the manual way they will be visible to observers. If they are 40,000 light years out they will be showing up on telescopes for the next 40,000 years. I'd say that's a good reason to prefer the Citadel relay method!

I agree with the idea that Sovereign (or Saren) managed to wake the other Reapers up when he accessed the Citadel. Before that, Sovereign was running the show, waking up periodically to check when the signal needed to be sent. I don't think he necessarily sent the Signal 2000 years ago even if he was behind the Rachni. I get the idea that he was just tweaking things along every now and again and the Rachni was just one of the tweaks. He probably decided that the Rachni's telepathy were a potential threat to the Reaper invasion and took steps to get them wiped out. It was only recently that he decided to signal the invasion, probably when Humanity entered the frame.

Once the other Reapers were awakened, Sovereign would have uploaded all his info to them. They would have realized that humanity were a potential source of reproduction material and that Cerberus, at least, knew about them and was taking a lot of measures to try to develop defenses against them. That's when they decided they couldn't afford to wait for another attempt on the Citadel and had to take the less attractive option of FTL flight to the Alpha relay.

Once they get to the Alpha relay they can fly directly to the Citadel and decapitate the Galactic government as they would have anyway. No one will see them coming because the light from their travel will arrive after they do.As the codex says, no sensors exist that can detect a ship in FTL. They still get surprise but may end up compromising surprise for the next cycle and might also have to eat into energy reserves that they'd rather not consume.

I'm really not seeing plot holes here.

Regards

Julian

[Raxxman]

nhsk wrote...

Because with the current rate of technological achievement in 100 or 200 years Organics could very well have out-teched the Reapers.
Just look at how fast tech develops today with computers aiding scientists.

This is highly unlikely.

Generally the Reapers have shaped the progress of organics technical evolution by leaving technology around for them to investigate/repoduce.

It's fairly well established in ME that several technologies have reached a plateau (check out the personal weapons). Imitation is easier than invention, Reapers are massively advanced. The collectors are like the throwback off cuts of Reaper tech yet they were so far ahead of everyone in terms of technical ability.

I mean the collector ship is a transport, yet can take on a military frigate/cruiser (and I feel the Normandy 2 is actually cruiser size not friagte sized) and cause massive damage.

The biggest combat advancement that has happened recently has been due to retrofitting reaper technology of Sovs gun.

It's also important to understand that need drives evolution, technical or otherwise. If we reach a level of technology where we fufill every need we desire the technology to do, we will not invest for further research. As a scientist I can tell you this happens now a lot more than you might realise with an outside opinion.

The concept of out teching the Reapers is very slight, people playing them off as dumb are just looking at grey images and seeing black and white only.

[Thrombin]

Raxxman wrote...
The concept of out teching the Reapers is very slight, people playing them off as dumb are just looking at grey images and seeing black and white only.

Actually, I think you're underestimating the impact of humanity. I'm re-reading the ME1 codex for the first time in years and it reminded me that the established races were amazed at some of the innovations that humanity brought to the table in a short space of time. Humanity hasn't been as guided as the rest of the Galaxy, they've spent all this time developing along their own technological path and have only recently discovered the Reaper's tech.

I think they're a bit of a wild card in the Reaper's plans and it could well be the reason why Sovereign decided he had to act once humanity started showing what it could do. 

Humanity took the plateau and started building on it. That's not something the Reapers can afford to let happen for long. 

[Dudeman315]

I just wanted to point out my purpose of this topic is more of a "Hey bioware please answer this in ME3" than a "ME is broken and nothing can fix it"--because I believe it could be explained with proper writing...at the end of the day reapers still take the longer(still really short) way and think they can win, I just want an explanation for this.

[seirhart]

Thrombin wrote...

Raxxman wrote...
The concept of out teching the Reapers is very slight, people playing them off as dumb are just looking at grey images and seeing black and white only.

Actually, I think you're underestimating the impact of humanity. I'm re-reading the ME1 codex for the first time in years and it reminded me that the established races were amazed at some of the innovations that humanity brought to the table in a short space of time. Humanity hasn't been as guided as the rest of the Galaxy, they've spent all this time developing along their own technological path and have only recently discovered the Reaper's tech.

I think they're a bit of a wild card in the Reaper's plans and it could well be the reason why Sovereign decided he had to act once humanity started showing what it could do. 

Humanity took the plateau and started building on it. That's not something the Reapers can afford to let happen for long. 

This is true right there, humanity isn't following the path the reapers want them to take. Humanity is following their own technological path, which means that humanity may have weapons armor and ships that are specifically built for taking on the reapers that no one in the galaxy has seen yet. Shepard and a select few are not the only ones who know about the reapers the alliance also knows about them as well.

[Rahmiel]

@whywhywhywhywhy

I know it has been 50,000 years since, but the 4 years is in reference to the time scale from the first game to the start of the third game. People kept saying, why not wait 4 years (Sovereigns attack on the citadel to the events in arrival) and strike from the alpha relay. That's what I responding to.

The reason why they decided not to wait to hit up the alpha relay and instead try to reopen the citadel.

[Rahmiel]

Thrombin wrote...
Humanity hasn't been as guided as the rest of the Galaxy, they've spent all this time developing along their own technological path and have only recently discovered the Reaper's tech.

That's a very good point, actually.  The other races have been exposed to reaper tech for years.  Humanity just reached the citadel less than a century ago so they don't have that.. on rails expansion that the other races probably experienced.

[Raxxman]

Thrombin wrote...

Raxxman wrote...
The concept of out teching the Reapers is very slight, people playing them off as dumb are just looking at grey images and seeing black and white only.

Actually, I think you're underestimating the impact of humanity. I'm re-reading the ME1 codex for the first time in years and it reminded me that the established races were amazed at some of the innovations that humanity brought to the table in a short space of time. Humanity hasn't been as guided as the rest of the Galaxy, they've spent all this time developing along their own technological path and have only recently discovered the Reaper's tech.

I think they're a bit of a wild card in the Reaper's plans and it could well be the reason why Sovereign decided he had to act once humanity started showing what it could do. 

Humanity took the plateau and started building on it. That's not something the Reapers can afford to let happen for long. 

actually I think you give humanity too much credit. Although I do feel that humanity was a wrench in the wheel, it's entirely to do with one man, not humanity as a whole.

The whole galaxy is just in a cicle. The Rachni were the biggest threat to the whole galaxy, until the Krogan beat them, then they were the biggest threat to the galaxy until the Turians beat them down. Enter harvest time, Soverign takes the current top dog (Turians) and turns one of their best into his pawn, only to be stopped by one single human. This put humans on the map, top of the pile, not before.

Humanity hasn't really invented. The codex describes retrofitting tech over everything else. It's putting your own spin on the same idea, but not actually inventing anything per say. The point is invention occurs rarely. People take ideas and adapt them in new ways. Humanity might have different ways of employing reaper tech, but at the end of the day it's still reaper tech. It's probably about the same as giving natives the technology of the spear, and them inventing arrows. Okay that's kinda impressive but you come in with assault rifles and GPMGS and arty and clean house. Reapers didn't leave the good stuff behind, although we have had a peak at the reaper peak tech, which is why the thanix cannon is such a massive jump from current tech (Turian, not human as well, go Garrus go)

Humans are top of the food chain this cycle. That's without a doubt, and why the reapers are interested in noming us and turning us into one of them, but none of the other races who all have distinct flaws.

I also have to add I find your name rather disturbing as you have the same name as my boss and a user name is the same as an enzyme we work on.

That freaks me out

[whywhywhywhy]

Memmahkth wrote...

@whywhywhywhywhy

I know it has been 50,000 years since, but the 4 years is in reference to the time scale from the first game to the start of the third game. People kept saying, why not wait 4 years (Sovereigns attack on the citadel to the events in arrival) and strike from the alpha relay. That's what I responding to.

The reason why they decided not to wait to hit up the alpha relay and instead try to reopen the citadel.

It's been 4 years Since Sheperd's been involved but not since the denial of the Cycle repeating by the Protheans.  They've been waiting longer then 4 years.

[Thrombin]

@raxxman don't worry I'm not your boss lol

Thrombin's just the name of an old D&D dwarf character of mine

[Dougremer]

Praetor Shepard wrote...
Check this out, it's a decent synopsis of the Reaper Plans:

Mesina2 wrote...

Explaining Reaper plans


Special thanks to Squee913 for voicing this.

http://social.biowar...41788/1#7741788

That's the best explanation for now. I can really see it malting together. ME 3 will be awesome!

/D

[Mister Mida]

Dougremer wrote...

That's the best explanation for now. I can really see it malting together. ME 3 will be awesome!

/D

Best explanation? It's pretty much the only explanation that makes sense. But it's still based on assumptions or that anyone else has come up with it.

Modifié par Mister Mida, 21 juillet 2011 - 09:58 .

[didymos1120]

Thrombin wrote...

@raxxman don't worry I'm not your boss lol

Thrombin's just the name of an old D&D dwarf character of mine

You named a dwarf after a clotting enzyme?

[CroGamer002]

Mister Mida wrote...

Dougremer wrote...

That's the best explanation for now. I can really see it malting together. ME 3 will be awesome!

/D

Best explanation? It's pretty much the only explanation that makes sense. But it's still based on assumptions or that anyone else has come up with it.

I'll take that as you like that.

[Candidate 88766]

Its implied the Reapers have been travelling towards the galaxy for almost 2000 years, not 4. This makes their actions perfectly logical. Now, I admit that my theory relies on speculation and a little imagination, but as far as I'm aware there isn't anything that actually contradicts it so it works for me:

Their original plan hinges on the Keepers responding to Sovereign's signal. They didn't. At this point, I imagine the Reapers in dark space begin to emerge from hibernation, discover something is wrong, and start to move towards the galaxy.

Sovereign then tries to use the Rachni to create a galactic war. Presumably it thinks that the ensuing chaos will give it a chance to reach the Citadel, as its fleets may be elsewhere, but this is thwarted by the discovery and subsequent uplifting of the Krogan.

Sovereign still wants to activate the Citadel Relay, this time using Saren and the Geth to help. Relays create a corridor of low mass space, and there is no reason why you can't enter that corridor from any point along it, not just from the end points. The only reason you never have this situation in ME is that in order to join a low-mass corridor from, say, the mid-point you'd need to be deep in space, and it could take thousands of years to get that deep in space. All colonised planets are clustered around the Relays, so they are the only points at which organics can enter the low-mass corridors. There is no reason that the Reapers couldn't enter the corridor between the Citadel Relay and the Dark Space Relay at any point along it after it has been activated, as they can travel for thousands of years. So while the Reapers are travelling towards the galaxy they still need Sovereign to activate the Relay so they can cut their journey time to nothing, and conserve fuel.

After Sovereign is lost, the Reapers have no choice but to continue their journey towards the galaxy without the aid of Relays. Batarian space just happens to be the closest point of the galaxy to where the Reapers are, so it makes sense that there'd be some kind of back door here. In this case, the Alpha Relay. The codex says that when fully active it can link to the Citadel itself, so the Reapers can still salvage their original plan. Shepard foils this again, so they have no choice but to move through the galaxy without the aid of Relays, hence the several months between Arrival and the Reapers finally reaching colonised space.



How the Collectors fit into this takes even more speculation on my part, and tbh I can't really back my thoughts up on this but here goes anyway:

With the Reapers' original plan of cutting off the Citadel and shutting down the Relays, they can harvest species at their leisure. With that plan seeming unlikely after Sovereign's defeat, even though they may be able to reach the Citadel by the Alpha Relay, the element of surprise is lost. Galaxy-wide conflict is the most likely outcome, rather than controlled conflict of the original plan where the Reapers can fight one system at a time. Due to this, there is a worry that any species worthy of 'ascension' will be weakened or possibly destroyed outright. Therefore, they need the Collectors to, um, collect as many humans as they can before the Reapers arrive and galactic war damages humanity too much. This way, if it turns out a human Reaper is possible it can be built in the core, safe from the conflict. This is thwarted by Shepard and so the chance of building a human Reaper relies on taking Earth as early in the conflict as possible.



tl;dr - it makes much more sense to imagine the Reapers have been travelling towards the galaxy for 2000 years, not 4. There is nothing to contradict this yet, and it is perfectly plausible.

Modifié par Candidate 88766, 21 juillet 2011 - 10:18 .