ajlueke wrote...
This sort of pertains to the endings so I will repost it here. I was wondering if someone can explain the ME story to me as it pertains to the third game. I am really confused as to the motivations of Sovereign and the Collectors and their plans now that we know the reapers aren't rapped in dark space.
The fact that the reapers aren't trapped and can simply travel to the galaxy in three years isn't what is confusing to me. The fact that there three year arrival seems to nullify everything Sovereign was trying to do as unecessary is what puzzles me. If the reapers aren't trapped and can make it to the galaxy in three years, when the citadel signal failed, why didn't Sovereign just signal them to start flying?
His effort to subvert the geth into an attck on citadel and then track down the conduit, results in his attack on Eden Prime. That attack, makes Shepard and a few others aware of the reaper existence and ultimately allows them to prepare to some extent. Had Sovereign simply signaled the reapers to being "hoofing it", they would have arrived in the galaxy three years later without anyone knowing what a reaper was. Sovereign's bid to still activate the relay and ultimate sacrifice seemed a high price to pay for only a three year wait. One could agrue that perhaps the citadel was just a high priority tactical advantage, allowing the reapers to close of mass relays, picking off one system at a time, and also providing them with census data etc.
That argument is also nullified in the third game when the reapers arrive. They use the mass relays to travel to Earth and the outlying systems first. They could just take the relays directly to the citadel and conquer it first anyway, achieving the same effect as if they had gated in there. But they do not. Apparently they are in no rush to get to the citadel. So why did Sovereign have to try and activate the citadel and spend all that time hatching his plan to use the conduit to board the station and utilize the geth to occupy the citadel fleet when it was absolutely unnecessary and ultimately detrimental to do so? The only explanation for Sovereign taking the time to hatch a plan and still try to activate the citadel would be if the reapers were indeed trapped in dark space. But they aren't...so...huh?
The same can be said for the collector plot to build a human reaper. They abducted hundreds of thousands of humans and had the reaper in a embryo state over the two years Shepard is dead. EVI estimates it will take millions of more humans to complete it. So the collectors won't actually be done with the reaper before the actual reaper invasion begins a year later. So, why are they making it? They could have stayed at the galactic core and waited for the main reaper invasion began, and then used the collector base to build a new reaper much faster. Instead, by trying to get a head start the base gets destroyed. Again what was the plan here? They started something that ultimately was unnecessary and massively detrimental to their cause. Why?
At the end of the second game Harbinger says "You have failed, we will find another way" to the collector general. Another way to do what? Harvest humans and build a reaper? If by find another way he means show up in a year and do it ourselves he doesn't have to look very far for the solution. Again, if the reaper WERE trapped in dark space, they would need a vanguard to replace sovereign and open the citadel relay, but they are not, so who knows?
The only explanation that makes sense is "plot devices". Shepard needs to find out about the reapers. Shepard needs to work for Cerberus. Plot devices that ultimately don't make sense really kill the immersion in the the story. Instead of defeating nefarious plans for a galactic invasion in the first two games, you simply stopped the nonsensical plans of villians who apparently do things for no reason.
It didn't have to be that way either. Bioware really could have done anything else, some other way for the reapers to arrive in the galaxy other than just flying in. Something that would be achieved through great difficultly, to make the plans of the antagonists of the first two games seem worth it. Things as they are, why did Sovereign and the Collectors bother?
And just to put my two cents in on the ending. I remember in Mass Effect one, when you ask Sovereign why he is doing these things, he tells you that the reapers motives are beyond our comprehension. I remember talking with friends about it. Maybe there is a larger galaxy spanning conflict, and the reapers need to harvest species to prevent some greater calamity, something of a scale and scope mortal races couldn't comprehend as he said. But no, they just need to prevent AI from killing organic life. Really? That isn't really beyond anyone's comprehension. But maybe Sovereign himself can't comprehend a lot. He clearly can't comprehend that he doen't need to activat the citadel when he could just phone is buddies to show up in three years. Seriously, what is going on with this story!
This line of thinking has been going through many fans minds, including mine.
I have just finished playing all 3 games over again. And I have to say, the Catalyst seems to disregard Sovereign and many other points in the trilogy. Sovereign essentially killed himself, for no purpose.
He also was apparently unable to contact Harbinger and the other Reapers. But Harbinger can "assume direct control" of the Collectors, with ease. When the activation code failed, they apparently had plenty of time to come conventionally, and Sovereign just had to wait 3 years, not plan decades of work to access the Citadel with the Geth and Saren.
And was Sovereign screwing with us when we talked to him? That seems to be the only explaination i can come up with now that the story has concluded.
And yes, "Beyond your Comprehension" is an insulting and painful dialogue when I played ME1 again. When I played again, I got the impression Bioware's writing team was saying that to me, that I was intellectually inferior and could not comprehend their "solution".
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