75 réponses à ce sujet

[Baka-no-Neko]

RogueMumei wrote...

Baka-no-Neko wrote...

RogueMumei wrote...

eldrjth wrote...

their own home galaxy which dates back to the beginning of the universe, has mostly sunken into its super massive blackhole core long ago, save for a few star systems of very high importance to the reapers on the outer rim. its was the inevitability that their galaxy be swallowed by its core that drove them outwards to find other suitable galaxies to provide them with resources...

I'd just like to point out that matter orbits black holes just as it orbits all other masses. If our sun was magically turned into a black hole with the same mass as our sun, the Earth would continue its orbit unchanged. In other words, galaxies aren't eaten alive by the super-massive blackholes at their center of gravity. 

(Yes, I am lame.)

I thought that only happened once a black hole had nothing more within range to feed it, and then they fall silent?

Nope. All matter acts normally around black holes until it reaches the event horizon. And then it's screwed forever. That's why black holes have accretion disks. I've never heard of black holes "falling silent"; as far as I know, the event horizon never stops being... itself. It'll always be the point of being screwed and it never disappears.

Kinda what I meant, but you know the proper words for it its ages since I watched/read anything on them. Thanks for clarifying.

[KevShep]

BobSmith101 wrote...

For all we know the organic goo could be doing the same thing and not even be aware that they are dead.

Because Sin retains part of his original self he does "odd" things, just like the Reapers.

I think that same goo happends to be in Shepard's scars (ME2). Its is the same color as the goo from the collectors human reaper. Its my theory that he (shepard) is a human reaper.

[Siddan]

BobSmith101 wrote...

Siddan wrote...

Baka-no-Neko wrote...

If they are machines then who built them? Are they serving a higher being? Or are they, as someone said, trying to merely survive through what Rrezz said. It makes ME3 all the more exciting, I hope the reasoning Bioware gives is good.

Why would they need to destroy all the civilizations in order to survive? I think the word Salvation is the key here, but the word is, I guess, relative to their cause. Their salvation might lie in reproducing. And I too hope that Bioware will give us a satisfactory answer to all these questions, but I fear they might have created something to ambitious to explain fully. Perhaps we would be better off not knowing and forming our own conclusions. I've heard from a few that have read the script that their reason isn't very logical at all. I hope that's not the case But I guess it's impossible to please everyone.

Did you ever play Final Fantasy X ? 

A Reaper could be just like Sin. Inside this huge creature called Sin a civilisation from a 1000 years before exists in the dream of the high summoner. There is a Reaper for every civilisation ever Reaped so by killing a Reaper you are commiting genocide.

For all we know the organic goo could be doing the same thing and not even be aware that they are dead.

Because Sin retains part of his original self he does "odd" things, just like the Reapers.

I'm ashamed to admit it, but I have never played a Final Fantasy game (for more than a few min anyway). But the idea is very interesting, since it takes hundreds of thousands of beings to create just one reaper. Maybe it's an attempt at some form of "noahs ark"? They are immortalizing all the races deemed worthy so that they may survive what ever the end might be 

[Strange Aeons]

For what it's worth, I wondered the same thing a while ago and gave it some thought.

I haven't found any of the answers we've been given so far very satisfying.  You have to hand it to Bioware, though: it's not an easy task to make the invasion and potential destruction of Earth feel anticlimactic, but they managed.

[Siddan]

Strange Aeons wrote...

For what it's worth, I wondered the same thing a while ago and gave it some thought.

I haven't found any of the answers we've been given so far very satisfying.  You have to hand it to Bioware, though: it's not an easy task to make the invasion and potential destruction of Earth feel anticlimactic, but they managed.

Yeah I think I read that post a year ago or so, found it very interesting. But how did you come to the conclusion that the invasion and the potential destruction of earth will feel anticlimactic?

[The Harmonizer]

"There is a realm of existence so far beyond your own you cannt even imagine it. I am beyond your compehesion. I am sovereign."

Well, clearly we cannot comprehend it so let's just move on....

[Strange Aeons]

Siddan wrote...

Strange Aeons wrote...

For what it's worth, I wondered the same thing a while ago and gave it some thought.

I haven't found any of the answers we've been given so far very satisfying.  You have to hand it to Bioware, though: it's not an easy task to make the invasion and potential destruction of Earth feel anticlimactic, but they managed.

Yeah I think I read that post a year ago or so, found it very interesting. But how did you come to the conclusion that the invasion and the potential destruction of earth will feel anticlimactic?

It's anticlimactic because the reapers, when we were first introduced to them, seemed utterly mysterious in purpose and virtually godlike in power.  They represented a new order of threat, magnificently ambitious, on a inconceivably vast scale--it required the combined might of the most advanced races in the galaxy to deal with ONE.  Now they've been reduced to a far more mundane level, and their appearance en masse makes the struggles of the last two games feel meaningless.

They have a huge galaxy of limitless possibility to play in, and yet they can't resist dragging us right back to Earth to manufacture drama.  That just seems rather parochial to me, considering the stakes invloved and what we've seen of the galaxy so far.  It's as if someone handed you an interplanetary starship, and you just left it in your garage while continuing to lounge in your backyard. 

I had imagined that resolving the threat represented by the reapers might involve something grander and more creative than mustering the army to fend off the standard alien invasion, which is what I've seen of ME3 so far.  I hope they surprise me.

Modifié par Strange Aeons, 19 février 2012 - 09:27 .

[Siddan]

Strange Aeons wrote...

Siddan wrote...

Strange Aeons wrote...

For what it's worth, I wondered the same thing a while ago and gave it some thought.

I haven't found any of the answers we've been given so far very satisfying.  You have to hand it to Bioware, though: it's not an easy task to make the invasion and potential destruction of Earth feel anticlimactic, but they managed.

Yeah I think I read that post a year ago or so, found it very interesting. But how did you come to the conclusion that the invasion and the potential destruction of earth will feel anticlimactic?

It's anticlimactic because the reapers, when we were first introduced to them, seemed utterly mysterious in purpose and virtually godlike in power.  They represented a new order of threat, magnificently ambitious, on a inconceivably vast scale--it required the combined might of the most advanced races in the galaxy to deal with ONE.  Now they've been reduced to a far more mundane level, and their appearance en masse makes the struggles of the last two games feel meaningless.

I had imagined that resolving the threat represented by the reapers might involve something grander and more creative than mustering the army to fend off the standard alien invasion, which is what I've seen of ME3 so far.  I hope they surprise me.

I've been thinking the same thing, but we don't actually know for a fact how it will end. They did show us the earth fleet decimated when the normandy escaped, which reinforced the picture of reapers being indestructible. And as some people claim, we don't know if sovereign was one of a kind. He might have been one of the more powerful ones left behind to do the "dirty work", so maybe we've given the reapers more credit than is due. I guess only time will tell if Bioware can solve their own riddle, I have high hopes that they will 

Modifié par Siddan, 19 février 2012 - 09:22 .

[AkiKishi]

Siddan wrote...

I'm ashamed to admit it, but I have never played a Final Fantasy game (for more than a few min anyway). But the idea is very interesting, since it takes hundreds of thousands of beings to create just one reaper. Maybe it's an attempt at some form of "noahs ark"? They are immortalizing all the races deemed worthy so that they may survive what ever the end might be 

Well that is very much what Sin is, the preserved Zanarkand in a dream state inside everyone just goes about their day to day business like they did a 1000 years before. Every 10 years a high summoner comes along kills Sin and then a new one is reborn (more to it but it would be too spoilerish).

It puts a whole different spin on the Reapers. Maybe they are just bad at explaining that being a human smoothie is a good thing. The Reapers as an ark makes quite a bit of sense more so perhaps from ME2 than ME1. Sovereign was a bit of dick really. It makes more sense in Harbingers "Salvation through destruction"

Tell you the truth after playing mostly BG/IWD etc It took me a while to get into the Final Fantasy series.They are very different but very good once you start enjoying them for what they are and not what they are not.

Modifié par BobSmith101, 19 février 2012 - 09:30 .

[PlatonicWaffles]

To make Reaper babies.

[heisman45]

We're over complicating this. They want to reproduce just like any other species ever they just have a more advanced way of doing it.

[Arkitekt]

Well yes the reapers will almost assuredly disappoint. And this is to be expected since it is the same thing that happens everytime a deep mystery reveals itself and we see the men behind the curtain puling his strings. Magic becomes illusionism, etc.

This is why me1 worked so well, because it gave us the glimpse of the scale of the mystery, but left it as a mystery. Kind of reminds me the mindfrakking that Volition gave us in Freespace 2's ending, giving yhe player both a sense of awe and despair, and mostly irrelevance: we are dust that even our most powerful enemy is not interested ... And we don't even know why....

ME3 will explain everything, and just that promise is already parochializing the mystery. ME1 was deeply Lovecraftian, whereas ME3 won't be.

[CenturyCrow]

Read the article in the link that's posted in this thread:

social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/323/index/9330721

[Siddan]

heisman45 wrote...

We're over complicating this. They want to reproduce just like any other species ever they just have a more advanced way of doing it.

But with their intelligence and superior technology, doesn't it seem a bit strange that they can only reproduce every 50.000 years? Even if that is the case, why would the want to create more of themselves? If the cycle is never broken, they would, in theory, reproduce until the end of times until they can't reproduce any longer (due to the universe slowly decaying over billions of billions of years). Surely they must know that?

[Siddan]

heisman45 wrote...

We're over complicating this. They want to reproduce just like any other species ever they just have a more advanced way of doing it.

Double post

Modifié par Siddan, 19 février 2012 - 09:58 .

[Tazzmission]

they just want to romance humans because other species didnt meet there kink

Modifié par Tazzmission, 19 février 2012 - 10:00 .

[Harvoification]

I personally believe that the Reapers think they are doing the right thing. To them, they are not destroying life, merely immortalising it in another, much more durable (and eternal) form. I think they believe that they are raising lesser species to the pinnacle of evolution.

I also think that whatever race created the Reapers were (obviously) far beyond the technology of the Protheans. After eons past, they watch other species evolve to such a point where they have the technology to wreak havoc on an entire galaxy. After further observation, almost every single one who posses such technology eventually misuse it and it results in billions of death. Their race are the only ones who have grown to this point and not ended up annihilating both themselves and the stars and precious planets which support life.

They then, somehow, with their advanced knowledge of the universe "upload" their consciousness into one physical being, a "harbinger". This being, then sets out to stop the untold trillions from not only destroying themselves, but the very mortal universe as well. Instead of simply annihilating them, it does the same thing that the race that created it did to themselves. Liquifies them and uploads their collective consciousness into a 2km long machine, forever immortilising the species.

Being uplifted to this state frees them from their cycle of destruction and thus, they do not destroy themselves. They to, want to help other species to become immortalised due to the extremely high probability that any race with advanced technology is going to destroy themselves eventually.

Perhaps, the race that created the Reapers would have done so eventually, but they stopped this from happening by uploading to a eternal physical being. Perhaps this was also one of the reasons they decided to go through with it, as there is almost a certainty that one day, they will misuse their technology and harm the universe around them.

So basically, the Reapers feel they are protecting the races' both from themselves, and from harming the fragile universe around them which is essential to supporting life. To them, they are not giant genocidal mechanical monsters, they are simply protectors. Protectors of the universe itself and the life that inhabits it.

Just my 2 cents. What do you guys think of my theory? Feel free to poke holes in it where you can; I want to know why or how it couldn't/wouldn't work.

Modifié par Harvoification, 19 février 2012 - 10:02 .

[ReallyRue]

Sometimes when I look at the other distant galaxies on the galaxy map, I wonder if the Reapers have harvested life there too. Why would they only choose the Milky Way and not others?

Edit: Maybe that's why they only appear to harvest every 50,000 years? Maybe they're genociding other species in other galaxies, and not hibernating in dark space.

Modifié par ReallyRue, 19 février 2012 - 10:06 .

[Guanxii]

All conjecture but I think of the reapers as farmers but with some Malthusian economics thrown in there; remembering for a second that reapers are organic/synthetic hybrids. If you consider that organic and synthetic material degrades over time then imagine the cost of maintaining a single reaper in good working order for over 50,000 years. Why fifty thousand years?

Using farming as an analogy If they harvest the crop [i.e. Us] too early they risk damaging the soil and the potential yield for now and for generations to come... but if they harvest the crop too late their own organic and synthetic material will be shot and many may be in a vulnerable state or beyond repair.

Also this is where Malthusian economics comes in: consider that the yield may be more or less constant (at best) but every cycle reapers continue to grow their population and therefore require more and more resources (organic and synthetic) to maintain AND grow the population at the current level of technology but they also seemingly have this inane needed to keep advancing their species technologically until you get to a point where their resource requirements are so out of whack that their species is slowly dying due to their own hubris. 

Their economic model is unsustainable because they have advanced beyond their own/the galaxy's productive capacity which cannot be expanded without some kind of technological production enhancing marvel which is literally impossible at the very end of the technology tree.

Modifié par Guanxii, 19 février 2012 - 10:10 .

[Siddan]

Harvoification wrote...

I personally believe that the Reapers think they are doing the right thing. To them, they are not destroying life, merely immortalising it in another, much more durable (and eternal) form. I think they believe that they are raising lesser species to the pinnacle of evolution.

I also think that whatever race created the Reapers were (obviously) far beyond the technology of the Protheans. After eons past, they watch other species evolve to such a point where they have the technology to wreak havoc on an entire galaxy. After further observation, almost every single one who posses such technology eventually misuse it and it results in billions of death. Their race are the only ones who have grown to this point and not ended up annihilating both themselves and the stars and precious planets which support life.

They then, somehow, with their advanced knowledge of the universe "upload" their consciousness into one physical being, a "harbinger". This being, then sets out to stop the untold trillions from not only destroying themselves, but the very mortal universe as well. Instead of simply annihilating them, it does the same thing that the race that created it did to themselves. Liquifies them and uploads their collective consciousness into a 2km long machine, forever immortilising the species.

Being uplifted to this state frees them from their cycle of destruction and thus, they do not destroy themselves. They to, want to help other species to become immortalised due to the extremely high probability that any race with advanced technology is going to destroy themselves eventually.

Perhaps, the race that created the Reapers would have done so eventually, but they stopped this from happening by uploading to a eternal physical being. Perhaps this was also one of the reasons they decided to go through with it, as there is almost a certainty that one day, they will misuse their technology and harm the universe around them.

So basically, the Reapers feel they are protecting the races' both from themselves, and from harming the fragile universe around them which is essential to supporting life. To them, they are not giant genocidal mechanical monsters, they are simply protectors. Protectors of the universe itself and the life that inhabits it.

Just my 2 cents. What do you guys think of my theory? Feel free to poke holes in it where you can; I want to know why or how it couldn't/wouldn't work.

Yeah it's similar to how I've pictured it. They know that at some point, a race will evolve far enough to be able to manipulate the entire universe and therefore also being able to destroy it. Only way to keep it from happening is to keep the civilizations in check. 

But that does not answer why they behave in the way they do. Might sound stupid, but why do they speak to shepard and the others as if they despise organics?"You are a disease to be purged"  etc etc. And also, why do they only select a few races to turn into reapers and not all? 

[Strange Aeons]

Harvoification wrote...

I personally believe that the Reapers think they are doing the right thing. To them, they are not destroying life, merely immortalising it in another, much more durable (and eternal) form. I think they believe that they are raising lesser species to the pinnacle of evolution.

I also think that whatever race created the Reapers were (obviously) far beyond the technology of the Protheans. After eons past, they watch other species evolve to such a point where they have the technology to wreak havoc on an entire galaxy. After further observation, almost every single one who posses such technology eventually misuse it and it results in billions of death. Their race are the only ones who have grown to this point and not ended up annihilating both themselves and the stars and precious planets which support life.

They then, somehow, with their advanced knowledge of the universe "upload" their consciousness into one physical being, a "harbinger". This being, then sets out to stop the untold trillions from not only destroying themselves, but the very mortal universe as well. Instead of simply annihilating them, it does the same thing that the race that created it did to themselves. Liquifies them and uploads their collective consciousness into a 2km long machine, forever immortilising the species.

Being uplifted to this state frees them from their cycle of destruction and thus, they do not destroy themselves. They to, want to help other species to become immortalised due to the extremely high probability that any race with advanced technology is going to destroy themselves eventually.

Perhaps, the race that created the Reapers would have done so eventually, but they stopped this from happening by uploading to a eternal physical being. Perhaps this was also one of the reasons they decided to go through with it, as there is almost a certainty that one day, they will misuse their technology and harm the universe around them.

So basically, the Reapers feel they are protecting the races' both from themselves, and from harming the fragile universe around them which is essential to supporting life. To them, they are not giant genocidal mechanical monsters, they are simply protectors. Protectors of the universe itself and the life that inhabits it.

Just my 2 cents. What do you guys think of my theory? Feel free to poke holes in it where you can; I want to know why or how it couldn't/wouldn't work.

I think that's one of the more interesting possibilities I've heard.  I 'm not convinced that the reapers, from what we've heard from them, care one whit about lives lost or protecting species from themselves, but I might be able to buy that, with the benefit of their perspective, they're doing it to protect the galaxy itself from physical destruction.  Maybe they preserve a race each cycle as a salve to their conscience, or just to enhance their collective insight.

That would require one hell of a story about what their creators witnessed in the past that made them go to such extremes to safeguard the galaxy.

Here's the problem, though: when Sovereign gives Shepard his "reason you suck" speech in ME1, far from suggesting that humans or other races are potentially dangerous, he openly expresses contempt for their weakness and the inherent inferiority of organic life itself, and seems to take great satisfaction in their impending destruction.  That doesn't really fit with the explanation that the reapers are wary of the enormous destructive potential of organic races; if anything, they seem to view them as insignificant.

[TheOtherTheoG]

Put it this way... when a mummy Reaper and a daddy Reaper love eachother very much...

[JaegerBane]

eldrjth wrote...
I think the reason they harvest sentient species to create new reapers from is so they can perfect their race, so its merely their form of biological engineering to create better and better reapers, which are allowed a certain time to reach potential before they are added to the genetic pool of the reapers.

It wouldn't surprise me if the Reapers turned out be the remnants of some out-of-control preservation scheme, or perhaps a defence system that gained sentience. Like enforced cybernetics originally intended to improve the species that created them, something went wrong and they evolved into the current machine race.

[Harvoification]

Strange Aeons wrote...

Harvoification wrote...

I personally believe that the Reapers think they are doing the right thing. To them, they are not destroying life, merely immortalising it in another, much more durable (and eternal) form. I think they believe that they are raising lesser species to the pinnacle of evolution.

I also think that whatever race created the Reapers were (obviously) far beyond the technology of the Protheans. After eons past, they watch other species evolve to such a point where they have the technology to wreak havoc on an entire galaxy. After further observation, almost every single one who posses such technology eventually misuse it and it results in billions of death. Their race are the only ones who have grown to this point and not ended up annihilating both themselves and the stars and precious planets which support life.

They then, somehow, with their advanced knowledge of the universe "upload" their consciousness into one physical being, a "harbinger". This being, then sets out to stop the untold trillions from not only destroying themselves, but the very mortal universe as well. Instead of simply annihilating them, it does the same thing that the race that created it did to themselves. Liquifies them and uploads their collective consciousness into a 2km long machine, forever immortilising the species.

Being uplifted to this state frees them from their cycle of destruction and thus, they do not destroy themselves. They to, want to help other species to become immortalised due to the extremely high probability that any race with advanced technology is going to destroy themselves eventually.

Perhaps, the race that created the Reapers would have done so eventually, but they stopped this from happening by uploading to a eternal physical being. Perhaps this was also one of the reasons they decided to go through with it, as there is almost a certainty that one day, they will misuse their technology and harm the universe around them.

So basically, the Reapers feel they are protecting the races' both from themselves, and from harming the fragile universe around them which is essential to supporting life. To them, they are not giant genocidal mechanical monsters, they are simply protectors. Protectors of the universe itself and the life that inhabits it.

Just my 2 cents. What do you guys think of my theory? Feel free to poke holes in it where you can; I want to know why or how it couldn't/wouldn't work.

I think that's one of the more interesting possibilities I've heard.  I 'm not convinced that the reapers, from what we've heard from them, care one whit about lives lost or protecting species from themselves, but I might be able to buy that, with the benefit of their perspective, they're doing it to protect the galaxy itself from physical destruction.  Maybe they preserve a race each cycle as a salve to their conscience, or just to enhance their collective insight.

That would require one hell of a story about what their creators witnessed in the past that made them go to such extremes to safeguard the galaxy.

Here's the problem, though: when Sovereign gives Shepard his "reason you suck" speech in ME1, far from suggesting that humans or other races are potentially dangerous, he openly expresses contempt for their weakness and the inherent inferiority of organic life itself, and seems to take great satisfaction in their impending destruction.  That doesn't really fit with the explanation that the reapers are wary of the enormous destructive potential of organic races; if anything, they seem to view them as insignificant.

Hmm.. that is a good point, and a major hole in my theory. Perhaps their hate originates from what the race that created the Reapers witnessed? Billions, maybe trillions of stars destroyed along with their orbiting planets. A good proportion of which could support, or eventually support, life. 

And I know it's hard for us to understand (and even admit), but we are, individiually so, insignificant. Not to ourselves, and our individual life, but in the grand scheme of things we are. A race of mechanical beings that have no emotion (or little, as Soveriegn did seem to hate organics, and hate IS an emotion) would think of things logically. And logically, individualy we mean nothing but as whole we are more important. Perhaps that what was Soveriegn was referring to? When we are combined as one, a whole race, we matter?

It's hard to determine whether or not the theory is viable because Soveriegn seemed to hate organics with a passion, where as Harbinger seems to (or at least speaks as if) it wants to save them in its own way. 

Even if this is not the case and I'm miles off, I hope we find out why they do what they do, and it's a good reason. If they just do it "to reproduce" it would suck, because in the first Mass Effect Soveriegn goes on about how the reason is beyond organic comprehension. (Maybe that's another hint towards my theory? It's in an organics nature to survive through violence, which ironically causes their demise, and this is why they can not comprehend the reason until they shed their destructive nature - which is becoming a Reaper)

Modifié par Harvoification, 19 février 2012 - 11:15 .