73 réponses à ce sujet

[Thomas Andresen]

Try Pinnacle Station. It's pretty hard to get a more awful DLC.

Every argument or theory I've read and heard about the Reapers' actions and non-actions seem to assume that ours is the only galaxy that they view as their plaything. I would assume that, considering the fact that, to date, we know of 115 unique galaxies within 11.7 million light years(Linky) of the Earth, it's highly likely that there's life elsewhere that the Reapers will want to harvest. If they really are as all-powerful as Sovereign wanted Shepard to believe, they wouldn't be satisfied with harvesting one galaxy if there's life elsewhere.

That they're "hibernating in dark space" is just one theory, and there's many other possibilities. Remember, we know next to nothing about them, and most of what we do know is little more the theorizing and guess-work. Even Shepard knows little beyond the fact that they are coming and most be stopped for the good of the galaxy.

[RA RA XD]

Awww man... Dead again? This is a really bad year

Pretty much Arrival in a nut shell.

[RPGmom28]

I liked having new areas to fight in, but I didn't like not being able to take any squadmates along. Every time I play through Arrival now, my sole goal becomes having to be put down by the mental pulse or whatever you call it instead of being beaten by the indoctrinated onslaught. My chance to shake my tiny fist at the overwhelming unavoidable circumstances, so to speak.

[Black Raptor]

Sgt Stryker wrote...


Harbinger was only active after the events of ME1, though. For all we know, the Collectors could have been running a passive observation program, and not actively taking part in the Reaper's plans. There is no indication that Harbinger needs to constantly Assume Control for the Collectors to function. Unless there's some novel or comic that says otherwise.

While that may be the case, it's not exactly proof that Sovereign couldn't speak to him.

In any case, here's another possibility that I came up with. Perhaps there is something inherently inefficient about traveling through FTL for long periods of time, and traveling via relay into the Milky Way is much more efficient? Maybe direct transit will leave the Reapers starved of energy, and that will be reflected in some way in ME3? I guess we'll all have to wait for March before we can find out.

Outside of the universe, this does seem to be a plot hole though, and does need a definitive explanation. In-universe, however, any number of plausible reasons can explain why Sovereign bothered going through with the Saren-Conduit plot.

Yes, it does need an explanation. 

My personal favourite is that there never was a Reaper fleet nearing the Alpha relay. It just seems a bit too much of a coincidence that Object Rho was found a few days before they would arrive, by people who could get in contact with Shepard. 

I'd like to think that the Reapers had identified Shepard as a significant threat so decided to use his ideals against him/her. Think about it. They indoctrinate Kenson, attract Shepard to Object Rho alone so they can try to indoctrinate him/her too. If this fails and confirms their idea thats/he unindoctrinateable then they know that his/her only logical course of action is to die against the defences of the project, or blow up an entire system hostile to the Alliance severely weakening Shepard's ability to lead.

This, I believe, is worthy logic for the Reapers and makes them far more sinister and cunning.

Modifié par Black Raptor, 22 septembre 2011 - 12:51 .

[Leematon]

Arrival was an ok DLC but mediocre when put alongside Project Overlord and Lair of the Shadow Broker. For me those two easily stand out as the best Mass Effect DLCs.

Enjoyed the 'Fight for Your Life' section (for the Last Stand achievement) and the battle in the Project Control Room though. They were challenging even on Normal.

Regarding Project Overlord, lets have a LOT more Hammerhead appearances in ME3 please.

[Black Raptor]

Leematon wrote...

Arrival was an ok DLC but mediocre when put alongside Project Overlord and Lair of the Shadow Broker. For me those two easily stand out as the best Mass Effect DLCs.

Enjoyed the 'Fight for Your Life' section (for the Last Stand achievement) and the battle in the Project Control Room though. They were challenging even on Normal.

Regarding Project Overlord, lets have a LOT more Hammerhead appearances in ME3 please.

For combat and setting, it was a very good DLC. I just want some clarification as to why the Reapers didn't decide that Arrival was a less preferable choice to ME1. Even the "FTL for 2 years is detrimental" plot plaster would work.

[Doug4130]

do people really miss the mako? I love the hammerhead. So fast.

[AdmiralCheez]

Eh, it was nothing special, but I enjoyed it.

[RPGmom28]

Doug4130 wrote...

do people really miss the mako? I love the hammerhead. So fast.

It's not so much the vehicle itself that I miss. It's the free-roaming over planet surfaces in exploration. Of course, it was still within a relatively small area. But it felt like real adventuring.

Why did I always feel like Garrus was driving? 

[Black Raptor]

RPGmom28 wrote...

Doug4130 wrote...

do people really miss the mako? I love the hammerhead. So fast.

It's not so much the vehicle itself that I miss. It's the free-roaming over planet surfaces in exploration. Of course, it was still within a relatively small area. But it felt like real adventuring.

Why did I always feel like Garrus was driving? 

The thing I miss was the fact that these planets were alien. In Me2, you go to different worlds, but they all look so much like Earth that they may as well be. 

[d1sciple]

so i screwed up trying to quote everyone lol, so here goes a wall of text.

and this is a good debate going on but it's a non spoilers forum, which sux lol, wrong place wrong time, needless to say trying not to let slip any spoilers, so tread wearily.

uh, so you're right about Saren using the Conduit, not Sov, but it still fits the scenario as that was the fatal distraction that left the fleet completely unprepared for Sov and the Geth turning up, drop a flash bang in your enemies face while you sneak up behind etc.

the main thing again about the Citadel is the master control over all the other relays, which is the greatest risk and the Protheans greatest weakness.
with the relays everyone in the galaxy would instantly know about the reapers, be able to group together and maybe form a counter attack and without the distraction of Saren and his goons running around inside the Citadel the Council fleets would be more prepared to completely gap it if a thousand reapers suddenly turned up.

with the relays under reaper control everyone is cut off so then they can go about their harvesting at their own leisure, no one can actually escape. it's just efficiency. the Protheans had no chance regardless of their tech advancement, they were restricted to the system they were in and weren't able to communicate with any other systems, fish in a barrel.

evidence suggests the Collectors are under constant control and not left to their own devices. even though shep seems to not know what they are evidence shows they've been known to the galaxy and out there doing their thing for thousands of years, abducting and experimenting on all the other races in the galaxy.
being tools for the Reapers it's hard to believe they just left them to it as even the mildly intelligent and possibly more trustworthy Saren needed his hand held constantly by Sov and had him over his shoulder the whole time, so it makes sense Harby IS the Collectors.

i don't think the Reapers are energy starved, i don't think that's what they hibernate for. they hibernate until their petri dish -the galaxy- has reached the desired point and then they come in by the most efficient and well practised way, grab what they're after and try make their way towards ascension, then it fails as it has like 700 times or something and they restart. man they must be pissed about the millions of years of failures aha ha ha.

[Sgt Stryker]

I'm not sure what you mean by "make their way towards ascension, then it fails as it has like 700 times." What are these failures you're talking about?

[d1sciple]

Sgt Stryker wrote...

I'm not sure what you mean by "make their way towards ascension, then it fails as it has like 700 times." What are these failures you're talking about?

this cycle of hibernation and harvesting has been going on for a few hundred million years. someone somewhere came up with a pretty good figure using the big bang timeline, codex entries and also there's a planet somewhere with the ruins of a race that had been harvested, they had a pretty logical timeline showing that this has been going on for a long time.
the reasons for the cycle are debated and kinda spoiler territory, but my conclusion is the Reapers are trying to recreate an experiment with this cycle of harvesting and being that they are still here doing it shows they've failed in their ultimate goal, which is some sort of 'ascension'.
the beings of light legend, the great rift, leviathan, the derelict, Rho, all point to the fact that the Reapers are not omnipotent gods but actually just a creation by someone/something else and the fact that each cycle they're trying to build a 'new' Reaper shows us that the pupose of the cycle is not some sort of food/energy gathering, but an experiment, which again being that they're still here trying shows us that they've failed countless times.

[Sgt Stryker]

Interesting theory about what the Reaper idea of what ascension is, but I disagree. I always thought this "ascension" business was what Reapers did to every species that they built a Reaper out of. In fact, I believe they aren't doing this out of a sense of malice, but they really think the species they are dissolving into orange goo is better off. They think they're doing a favor to us "lower lifeforms."

They aren't trying to ascend themselves by building new Reapers out of organic species, but they're trying to ascend organic species to what they think is the ultimate state of evolution.

[d1sciple]

Sgt Stryker wrote...

Interesting theory about what the Reaper idea of what ascension is, but I disagree. I always thought this "ascension" business was what Reapers did to every species that they built a Reaper out of. In fact, I believe they aren't doing this out of a sense of malice, but they really think the species they are dissolving into orange goo is better off. They think they're doing a favor to us "lower lifeforms."

They aren't trying to ascend themselves by building new Reapers out of organic species, but they're trying to ascend organic species to what they think is the ultimate state of evolution.

i don't think their own evolution is static. if we look at clips or pics of the armada they're all a bit different, which makes sense if they follow a basic design but are heavily influenced by the species they're essentially being 'made out of'. it makes no sense to do this if the Reapers are perfect unless they're gaining something new each time, therefore improving. if that's the case then there must be some sort of inner evololution happening, with every new Reaper having something better over the last 'design' and so on, and if so then they can't possibly think of themselves as perfection or some sort of evolutionary end goal.

[Black Raptor]

The Reapers are preserving the essence of the species they wipe out. When Harbinger speaks of "ascension", he's referring to the fact that, by becoming a Reaper, humans become more than they could ever achieve.

[d1sciple]

so you think that their hundreds of millions of years of harvesting cycles has been to help the lower, organic, species of the universe by 'ascending' them?

[Black Raptor]

Not the universe, just this galaxy. And yes, I don't think it'd be far fetched to have the Reapers actually acting for the greater good of organic life (from their POV). Maybe they know of some future threat that organics wouldn't be able to overcome, or maybe it's some inherent trait of organic species they need to be protected from.

[d1sciple]

come on man! they treat organic life this **** and have no mercy, even Saren figured that out in the end. they're doing this for them and there has to be a why, they're not GOD, punishing the wicked to spare the few like the flood, they hate life, just look at what they did to the Protheans.

[marstor05]

the reapers backstory must play a part in ME3 otherwise whats the point? They have to have a reason for doing what they do. You just dont go round killing off entire species for no reason.

[Black Raptor]

d1sciple wrote...

come on man! they treat organic life this **** and have no mercy, even Saren figured that out in the end. they're doing this for them and there has to be a why, they're not GOD, punishing the wicked to spare the few like the flood, they hate life, just look at what they did to the Protheans.

Yet they use genetic material to make more Reapers. Why would they be doing that? It would be pretty simple to make a Reaper with out that imput seeing as how they are machines. 
They aren't saving anybody, just preserving the essence of the species they reap.
People don't hate crops, yet we reap them because they are useful. The Reapers must be using organic life for more than just reproducing so who is to say that it isn't for preservation? 

[d1sciple]

Black Raptor wrote...

Yet they use genetic material to make more Reapers. Why would they be doing that? It would be pretty simple to make a Reaper with out that imput seeing as how they are machines. 
They aren't saving anybody, just preserving the essence of the species they reap.
People don't hate crops, yet we reap them because they are useful. The Reapers must be using organic life for more than just reproducing so who is to say that it isn't for preservation? 

preservation for themselves maybe, but it's likely more than that as they seem to also be evolving and taken that their creation is not left up to chance like ours but specifically designed then they must have a greater reason than preservation for doing so.
they need organics to build Reapers, but unlike humans relationship with food etc. they have no respect for organics at all. if it was a case of them ascending us there'd be no Collectors and the convo between shep and Sov would've gone more like -we are here to help whether you like it or not- instead of the complete distain that Sov expresses. i'm pretty sure they're not the Borg, no one would be foolish enough to create a sci fi trilogy where the antagonist is Borg, they'd be crucified.

Modifié par d1sciple, 25 septembre 2011 - 06:11 .

[d1sciple]

sorry mental internets

Modifié par d1sciple, 25 septembre 2011 - 06:10 .

[phoenixofthunder]

For me Arrival put everything into the correct context with no plot holes to speak of.

Here is a step by step of the way I see the current cycle:

• Reapers hibernate (AKA: A DEEP SLEEP) in the deep void beyond the galaxy rim (dark space).
• At the same time- Soverign-one of their own stays in the galaxy to be an spy on galactic life more or less.
• This vanguard hibernates(like his own) but also wakes periodicaly to check on the genetic material state of the galaxy.
• Now that Soverign has discovered that sufficient viable genetic material is available it sends the signal to the Citadel to activate and bring in the fleet. No point in calling the waiting reapers directly since they are in a deep sleep and any signal strong enougn to wake them would be detected by the known races and rally them.
• With no response Soverign must inact a plan, plus he activates the Reaper created drones also known as the Collectors.
• The Collectors are now active drones and these "Reaper will-doers" proceed with their mandate to kidnap, experiment, ect. (explains how everyone knew of the Collectors but Shepard didn't {he indirectly cause them to be activated})
• This activation of the Collectors inturn activates their "care-taker": Harbinger; who then converses with Soverign and Harbinger then sends the activation signal to rest of the Reaper fleet. 
• As a backup plan should Soverign fail, the Reaper fleet procede to the Alpha relay to enter the galaxy..... 
• Simultaneously Soverign encounters Shepard and squad and he is killed in his persistance to take over the Citadel. 
• Enraged that an "upstart" killed Soverign and not yet close enough themselves. The Reapers order that the Collector's destroy Shepard's Normandy SR1.
• Normandy SR1 is destroyed. At the Reapers request the Collector go to aquire Shepard's remains. 
• ME2 Starts....... Arrival takes place which....... Shepard already placed in motion.

So to sum it up the Reapers were caught with their pants down in a quite literally, when their primary tactic that had worked for countless cycles failed to achieve the desired result.  As such they had to quickly recover and devise an backup plan as the primary plan went into "critical mission failure". (yes the pun is intended;)).

Modifié par phoenixofthunder, 28 septembre 2011 - 08:40 .