223 réponses à ce sujet

[KylieDog]

What the game claims can work.

Imagine long ago, one of the first civilisations creates synthetics, a war breaks out. The only way to win it is for the organics to become Reapers, part organic and part synthetic.

They watch new organic life grow and see the same fate they once had repeat, so they decide to wipe them all out, thus the cycle has started. Much like the way the original organics survived, they take organics and turn them into new Reapers.

Why not just let organics and synthetics work it out/battle it out? Because even if organics win a war vs synthetics, eventually the organic civilisations are going to rival the Reapers power, and if another synthetic war happens then and organics are going to lose, by this point the Repears may not be powerful enough for a cleansing. They need do it sooner.

Thus they continue the cycle. They do it out of fear, for themselves and for all organic life.

[Cgrissom]

Personally my problem wasn't with the specific explanation given, it was with it being explained at all. The whole point is for them to be beyond our comprehension, so explaining it cheapens them for me, especially giving them a very simple and easily understandable motivation.

[GiBBsBoT05]

ediskrad327 wrote...

Unit-Alpha wrote...

The dark energy one worked fantastically well.

agree

agreed again

[Scitenik]

Red Dust wrote...

Asnine112 wrote...

There was no need to explain their motivations.

Should've kept them as a Lovecraftian entity

That ship has sailed, we got too many details in ME2 to not go all the way in 3.

I was going to say something similar to what Asnine did, but you make a good point.

They still should have kept with the no explanation thing though. Even if they did have a motivation, I can't see themselves bothering to properly explain it. They just are. They exist, they reap, and lesser beings wouldn't/couldn't/shoudln't comprehend why. In ME1 Sovereign just felt...alien and malicious. Cold and calculating. Like you automatically knew that there was going to be no talking Sovereign down, no bargaining or anything like that.

Harbinger was a big step down from that approach. Too much taunting.

[Zix13]

I always figured it was simply to make more reapers, like any other being. Survival. Harvest civilizations before they advance to the point where they are a threat but while their populations are the greatest.

[NoUserNameHere]

Greater purpose? Why can't they just grow civilizations like we grow wheat?

[Peer of the Empire]

 Offer a cash prize

[scq]

Why not because they just fear organics destroying them that they feel the need to preemtively wipe them out?

The preservation idea isn't too bad either. That they believe they are doing organic beings a favour by turning them into this goo and preserving them in their immortal machine bodies. The fact that organics strongly oppose this is just part of the arrogance that AI knows best which is consistent with the way Sovereign and Harbinger speak to you throughout the series.

[liggy002]

Some things shouldn't be explained and are beyond our comprehension. The mystery of it all is fascinating. A partial explanation of their motives would suffice but we don't have to know everything about them.

[FlyinElk212]

Phoenix Phire 13 wrote...

Eh, I always thought the Reapers goal was to prevent the destruction of all organic life, whether it be from themselves (devastating bio-weapon) or from synthetics. They would be the "reset" button that would prevent organic life from growing so powerful that it could wipe itself out, while still allowing life to exist by encouraging new races to form.

^^^^^

I think this was Bioware's intent, just very poorly written in the final scene. Should've never used the word "synthetic" in the final scene. The whole "synthetic vs. organic" crap logic is the big thing that's causing the problem with the Reaper's motivation in the first place.

Modifié par FlyinElk212, 19 mars 2012 - 02:34 .

[Fjordgnu]

Ultimately, I think the Reapers' motivations are like a good horror story: whatever explanation you're given will always fall short of whatever nebulous ideas you come up with.

[Mims]

I always assumed it was:

Reapers are created. Reapers eventually lose original programming, but being partially organic, see a need to reproduce. You don't want to be alone in eternity either. They choose a race to ascend to be one of them, killing all the people in it but essentially combining it into a singular consciousness. To them, it is like if you could collect enough ants, smash them together, and have a new "friend". In their minds, mortal life is brief and meaningless, and what they do is eternal.

Or, barring that. Unfathomable space Cthulhu nonsense because their great elder god demands it from his prison on the fourth dimension.

[Darthlawsuit]

NoUserNameHere wrote...

Greater purpose? Why can't they just grow civilizations like we grow wheat?

Then they don't have to mine any minerals, just melt down our buildings and creations. They have an endless DNA supply. They also get to have fun every 50,000 years, So long as the reaper core is not destroyed they will never have losses even if their squid armor is destroyed.

[JaylaClark]

The Reaper's motivation really isn't the issue with me for two reasons:
1. I can work to accept one thing about a plot that doesn't quite make sense and I seem to have chosen that one thing as my one thing this time.
2. More relevantly, the Reapers' logic makes sense. An insane sense, that unnerves me that I figured it out, but the AI isn't conventionally sane by our standards.

In the AI's eyes, life is being preserved in a way by the harvesting into new Reapers. So it IS better than synthetics and organics potentially completely wiping each other out. It's not logical by our standards, but anything that looks like genocide doesn't have logic to it on many levels in modern society.

So that's not the issue to my mind. Once you accept that one's logic isn't working rationally by our standards, you can figure out everything. (I figured out Adolph Hitler and Chris Benoit this way. Though the former only works if you accept him as a narcissistic sociopath. /VERY_random_aside)

[Cooptimo]

I always figured it was just the Reaper's own sense of Ego. They believed themselves to be the pinnacle of evolution and acted accordingly to "elevate" everyone else. It's an extreme quasi-religious motivation. Humans do stuff like that on a regular basis. Also just living for millions of years might drive someone insane. I expected some themes around the inherent evil of immortality and the price of power. Instead we got something both less complex and interesting than The Matrix.

[Mallissin]

I invented the perfect Reaper motivation two years ago, even called it the Catalyst.

Latest theory that Shepard is the Catalyst.

http://social.biowar...5/index/9996401

Old Reaper Origin and motivations theory (with the word "catalyst") from two years ago:

http://social.biowar...5/index/1513253

Modifié par Mallissin, 19 mars 2012 - 02:37 .

[Web Access Card]

The Reapers, in previous game installments, represent cosmic horror. To give them a motivation undermines their characterization as ancient, vastly intelligent creatures. The point is, The Reapers think in a way that is beyond the comprehension of human beings. They're moral judgments should be inexplicable. That makes them interesting and enigmatic.

I don't think it's any great challenge to construct theoretical motivations for The Reapers that are as plausible as the one provided, but to do so misses the point, to my mind. Being as how writers have only their limited human brains and imaginations to work with, any motivation you come up with will invariably try to make The Reapers motivations logical in human terms, and this ultimately destroys the illusion...

[Web Access Card]

The Reapers, in previous game installments, represent cosmic horror. To give them a motivation undermines their characterization as ancient, vastly intelligent creatures. The point is, The Reapers think in a way that is beyond the comprehension of human beings. They're moral judgments should be inexplicable. That makes them interesting and enigmatic.

I don't think it's any great challenge to construct theoretical motivations for The Reapers that are as plausible as the one provided, but to do so misses the point, to my mind. Being as how writers have only their limited human brains and imaginations to work with, any motivation you come up with will invariably try to make The Reapers motivations logical in human terms, and this ultimately destroys the illusion...

[thegoldfinch]

I liked to think that they harvested organic life to reproduce in order to fight an even larger and more horrifying force decimating the universe beyond the Milky Way. I enjoyed the thought that even though the Reapers are Not Good and had no sympathy for organics, they were actually the only things that have kept the Milky Way habitable and intact in the first place (even if the Milky Way was only intact as a means to farm life). If we continue on our original goal to destroy the Reapers, then we leave our galaxy wide open to the bigger threat.

It wouldn't be unlike the Dark Energy ending in this way but in this scenario, you get to have antagonists to rally against and fear instead of just having the conflict of characters vs the environment (the dark energy). Antagonists are what make stories engaging. A great antagonist can embody the themes of the story, play as a foil to the main character's beliefs, and give the story memorable moments of conflict. (Saren and Sovereign were great examples).

I feel that this ending would have left the series with a lot more interesting places to go than the endings we were left with. It would have also given the game and the writers a chance to make the Reapers somewhat sympathetic, in a way, by exploring their origins. For instance, perhaps the race that ultimately became the Reapers were not unlike humans and the races we had come to grow close to. While fending off this terrible evil, they had to make the choice between being completely decimated or living on in a form that could stand a chance to win, even if it meant losing the soul of the species.

It would have made some interesting parallels to humanity's plight against the Reapers/indoctrination, in my opinion. The situation would also invite opportunities to tread dark space and contact neighboring galaxies to learn more. That would be neat.

But... No. Space child. That happened.

Modifié par pixieface, 19 mars 2012 - 02:58 .

[TheGunslinger]

Adam Walsh wrote...

SkitSkit wrote...

Yeah, my shepard swears a little bit, in my mind Mindor was populated by Australian Jackaroos

That's just us Aussies in general. We are the only country where you can say "Oi C**t" or "Get F***ed" mean hello.

[dointime85]

adam_nox wrote...

1.  The motivation can't be based in selfishness of the reapers.
2.  The motivation must make logical sense and stand up to the same criticisms leveled at the current explanations.
3.  The motivation must provide some sort of greater good/utilitarianism or be absolutely necessary as part of some goal that is grand in scope.

i disagree with your premises.
the lord of the rings was a pretty good story without sauron having the greater good on his mind. da:o had a good story without the arch demon being portrayed as benevolent. in real life, in history, had some very twisted understanding of what was good and absolutely necessary (Hitler, anyone?), so why should this not be possible for the reapers?

As I said before, the motivations of the reapers were sufficiently established in ME2
1. reproduction
2. some twisted "good" desire of helping to elevate the worthy species to become what they are: the "pinnacle of evolution"

seriously, i'd be very skeptical about any logical and good intention behind repeated, systematic genocide. the absolute evil of genocide and good intentions do not mix well, neither from a storytelling perspective nor from a moral perspective.

edit:
what i would have found more interesting would have been to discover how the reapers were created.

Modifié par dointime85, 19 mars 2012 - 02:44 .

[SuperVulcan]

I don't understand why the Reaper motivations have to be 'good'. I mean why can't they just be evil resource, organic, or planet consuming monsters or something?

[Zine2]

adam_nox wrote...

Here's your chance to prove me wrong.  Shepard asks starkid why the reapers do what they do.  It's your turn to answer in his place, but there are rules (otherwise your answer will suck on a storytelling level and be inconsistent with themes from the game and bioware's style).

This is a false premise however. You're assuming that the Reapers have an actual motivation other than OMNOM.

Not all villains need to have a motivation. Zombies in a Zombie Apocalypse don't have a motivation - yet they're still great villains.

Therefore assuming that you should always have some kind of villain motivation is the completely wrong way to go about it. Unfortunately, the Bioware writing staff was apparently oblivious to this fact.

[Agamo45]

The dark energy thing sounded a hell of alot better than what we got. If you're going to make it THAT bad (Reapers wipe out organics to save them from synthetics) then you're better off just leaving their motives mysterious.