223 réponses à ce sujet

[DHspartan138]

Skyblade012 wrote...

I prefer honestly not knowing the Reaper's motivations.

Of all the questions I want answered, that one was not even on the list.

The Reapers are, essentially, space-C'thulu. They are supposed to be beyond us. Their technology, power, thoughts, and motivations are supposed to be something beyond our knowledge.

By explaining their logic, in a way we can understand it, you ruin them as villains. The Reapers are brought down to our level. This is furthered by humanizing them with a child avatar. They are no longer the big scary, unknowable death machines, they are just brainwashed tools of a logically broken computer.

I prefer to think that their motivation is literally something that we cannot cope with, that it doesn't fit in with our views and logic. It makes them more threatening, and makes destroying them more satisfying.

I couldn't have worded it any better. The Reapers were a fantastic antagonist right up until the point BioWare tried to give them a higher purpose, and it was because they were a terrifying unknown; alien to the player in every sense of the word. Giving them some sort of grand mission, whether it be to safeguard organic life (which still makes no sense given everything we've seen in the ME series) or stop the spread of dark matter, lessens them as the beautifully conceived villains that they are, which in turn lessens the story as a whole.

In essence, the Reapers go from this nightmarishly powerful race of "mechanical gods" that embodies the very states of fear, madness and despair to being yet another "misunderstood good guy" or, at best, just another villain fuelled by ego and self-interest.

[TheMerchantMan]

NightHawkIL wrote...

There are a number of motivations that would have much fewer plot holes. Here are three options in no particular order:

Originally the reapers were supposed to be working to prevent the spread of dark energy, hence all the references in ME2. The idea was scrapped after a script leak. That would be a fine motivation to bring back.

A second one would be that they simply want to prevent anything from becoming more advanced than they are, and yet keep some organics alive after each cycle so that they can use them to continue to improve themselves.

Third, they could believe they are gods - playing a role of directing evolution along the paths they believe are superior. They could be doing this to either; 1) create the a supreme form of life, which they might see as their duty as gods, or 2) simply be directing evolution to create creatures they can harvest to enrich their own knowledge or form.

My idea was more or less identical to the last two motivations.

It seems clear the Reapers are using the Organics for some purpose, a selfish one is far superior to this absurd, saving people from themselves by killing them idea.

[Sir MOI]

I think keeping it as some sort of mystery would be good. "We are beyong your comprehesion." We, organics, are just combustible for them. They are immensly superior to us.

Modifié par Sir MOI, 19 mars 2012 - 02:47 .

[Mallissin]

The Reapers are just trying to grow. They're synthetics who can't create original thoughts or ideas, since their orderly ways don't allow them to see beyond their own perspective. They need the chaos of organics to produce new technology and perspectives.

They also can't create new Reapers without an organic race as a base, but not every race is compatible. So far, in all of recorded history (of what's remained from the destroyed cycles), the Reapers have NEVER found a race that was compatible.

That is until Humans.

So, not only do they need humanity to build a new Reaper, but they need a bridge to link the human perspective with their own.

And that bridge...that catalyst, is Shepard.

[colateral]

If there needed to be a motive explained then I posted one, but I dont think there needed to be one and neither did Bioware at one point... remember

Vigil: In the end, what does it matter? Your survival depends on stopping them, not in understanding them.

[RoboticWater]

Zine2 wrote...

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.

I don't think that zombies are an apt comparison. Zombies are more of a catalyst or a hazard than a villian. They don't really fight you in the sense that you are an enemy but more like a gun that has randomly gone off and is killing things. Zombies are used more as a means to evolve characters or as a weapon of sorts rather than an actual villian.

In fact, zombies are the exact opposite of reapers. They aren't inexplicable, they're extreemely simple.

Modifié par BlahDog, 19 mars 2012 - 02:48 .

[dointime85]

DHspartan138 wrote...

Skyblade012 wrote...

I prefer honestly not knowing the Reaper's motivations.

Of all the questions I want answered, that one was not even on the list.

The Reapers are, essentially, space-C'thulu. They are supposed to be beyond us. Their technology, power, thoughts, and motivations are supposed to be something beyond our knowledge.

By explaining their logic, in a way we can understand it, you ruin them as villains. The Reapers are brought down to our level. This is furthered by humanizing them with a child avatar. They are no longer the big scary, unknowable death machines, they are just brainwashed tools of a logically broken computer.

I prefer to think that their motivation is literally something that we cannot cope with, that it doesn't fit in with our views and logic. It makes them more threatening, and makes destroying them more satisfying.

I couldn't have worded it any better. The Reapers were a fantastic antagonist right up until the point BioWare tried to give them a higher purpose, and it was because they were a terrifying unknown; alien to the player in every sense of the word. Giving them some sort of grand mission, whether it be to safeguard organic life (which still makes no sense given everything we've seen in the ME series) or stop the spread of dark matter, lessens them as the beautifully conceived villains that they are, which in turn lessens the story as a whole.

In essence, the Reapers go from this nightmarishly powerful race of "mechanical gods" that embodies the very states of fear, madness and despair to being yet another "misunderstood good guy" or, at best, just another villain fuelled by ego and self-interest.

I agree completely.

[Noatz]

They reap to reproduce, as was said before.

Harbinger's race quotes painted humans as the only suitable race for the Reaper's purposes. Why? Because it considered them the strongest in terms of genetic makeup and essentially, evolutionary potential. Note also his comment on the Krogan: "sterilized species, wasted potential." This could imply that if not for the genophage Krogan - a species we know to be "strong via evolution" thanks to the ecology of Tuchanka, would also be a suitable candidate race for the Reaper's purposes.

We know the Reapers "reproduce" by using vast amounts of organic matter in the constructon process. Thus they use the strongest species in each cycle to build new Reapers, and kill off the rest. They then allow primitive species to evolve (and reproduce) further so their "harvest" cultivated in the "fields" of the mass relays and Citadel has time to grow and mature. A Reaper originally means someone who harvests crops, later concepts such the grim reaper ascribing other more macabre meanings to the term.

They are arrogant, and believe themselves to be the apex of evolution (chiefly because they do not allow any other species the time to evolve), so they ascribe lofty notions of being incomprehensible presences with unknowable motives. In reality this is mere hubris of a species not fundamentally different to any other, and is what should have been finally revealed by Shepard in a final heated exchange with Harbinger.

"You are monsters, you are tyrants, you are not better than us, you are the death of evolution, not the apex of it. And we're going to kick your ass."

Modifié par Noatz, 19 mars 2012 - 02:50 .

[hanshotfirs]

I actually came up with a pretty good (in my opinion) motivation back in December, while I was writing one of my fanfics (yes, I'm one of *those* people... sorry!). It's similar to the one in the game, but different enough.

The Reapers were created to protect the galaxy. It was realized that if the races were allowed to expand without any sort of control, one superior race would spread out and take over the galaxy, suppressing the younger, less advanced races (like Javrik said the Protheans did). They would ultimate, through their expansion, wipe out younger races that had potential to advance.

In order to protect younger races from extinction, the reapers would come in, wipe out all of the races that had progressed to a certain point, and leave. The younger races would then have the time to develop without the threat of being wiped out by a stray colony being established.

My best example is the little monkey race in ME1. You wander through their villages, treating them like animals. A less discerning person would just wipe them out to get the stolen data back. The reapers protect the monkeys because they should have the chance to evolve on their own.

The cycle was setup to let the growth happen in a mangeable way, so one race didn't advance too fast before the reapers had time to prepare. They setup the citadel and mass relays so everyone took about the same time to progress, in a controlled manner.

It's simple gardening. Prune the bigger branches, so the younger, smaller ones can grow. that way, the plant lives as long as possible.

[Doomhams]

Yeah, keeping them as some unknowable evil would have been best. THAT is speculation I can live with. Learn their origins maybe, how they came to be, but NOT why they do what they do.

They are almost a McGuffin. Without the reapers, there would be no Mass Effect. No reason for Shepherd to be who he is and do what he does. They were a great powerful unknown and nothing is scary than things that are massacring you and you don't know why.

[Ryuukishi]

There is no explanation that wouldn't have some holes in it or wouldn't make them seem less threatening than if we just didn't know. Probably would have been fine to just leave it alone. But if there HAS to be an explanation, I actually don't hate the one we got. Makes as much or as little sense as anything else would have.

[Madecologist]

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).

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.

Concerning 1 and 3: Why can't the Reapers be motived by self interest. It could be self-interst passed as 'benevolance' but still self interest. So the question why can't it be so? Trying to understand this limitation.

No where does the game imply the Reapers can't be... selfish, but so self absorbed to the point they don't think so (to be fair most individual or group rarely see themselves as bad within their own logic). Also if you have played past BW games, BW has always had clear villainous forces. They might have good reasons, but those reasons were by no means 'not selfish' or flawed due to a personal vested elements. Nor does having the Reapers exerting a selfish agenda make it for bad storytelling.

In short the rules is an artificial limitation you impose on us, that the writers imposed on themselves. I know that it is why you asked us to do so. But my point is, perhaps the writers shouldn't have put the same constraint on themselves. So I still stand by my points that these rules are not rules of better storytelling nor are they standard rules of BW.

There is nothing artful or impressive in trying to give a 'benevolant' or 'alturistic' motives to a monstoureous force. One can try, but doing so does not make it any more special than a story that doesn't.  Also, there is nothing wrong for not trying.

Incidently, if you do remove those rules, the Star Child's reasons actually make more sense as presented without even changing his arguement. Which just goes to show these limitations are fully artificial, provide no benefit, and probably shouldn't have been used by the original staff.

Modifié par Madecologist, 19 mars 2012 - 04:05 .

[Blackmind1]

The Reapers original plan was never about wiping out organics because Synthetics might go derp one day. That's never how I interpreted them. To me, their actions were more about preserving the quality of life and making sure there's enough room for new species to evolve. They do this by wiping out all life at its pinnacle so they don't stunt evolution. They aren't evil, though. The do a job that needs doing, it isn't there fault that humans cannot comprehend it because they live in their own intergalactic bubbles.

EDIT: Think of them as intergalactic thumb drives, storing precious data (fully evolved life) in themselves so that there's room on the hardrive (galaxy) for new data (new species). They believe that the Hard Drive will one day become so full with fragmented data (all life) that it could possibly destroy the Hrad drive itself for good. They perform a routine defragment, storing the useless (yet precious, in terms of data) files on thumb drives.

Did that make sense?

Modifié par Blackmind1, 19 mars 2012 - 02:57 .

[Qutayba]

Skyblade012 wrote...

I prefer honestly not knowing the Reaper's motivations.

Of all the questions I want answered, that one was not even on the list.

The Reapers are, essentially, space-C'thulu. They are supposed to be beyond us. Their technology, power, thoughts, and motivations are supposed to be something beyond our knowledge.

By explaining their logic, in a way we can understand it, you ruin them as villains. The Reapers are brought down to our level. This is furthered by humanizing them with a child avatar. They are no longer the big scary, unknowable death machines, they are just brainwashed tools of a logically broken computer.

I prefer to think that their motivation is literally something that we cannot cope with, that it doesn't fit in with our views and logic. It makes them more threatening, and makes destroying them more satisfying.

I agree with Skyblade012 on the logic of the Reapers.  But really, I could overlook the weird explanation of the Reapers, plot holes, the space magic.  To be honest, the whole situation of the galaxy is just so hopeless and desperate, I have trouble imagining any ending that didn't resort to some kind of space magic (but at least the Crucible being a super-weapon kind of space magic was established earlier in the plot).

There's always going to be plot holes.  My gripe has less to do with "lore" and more to do with "drama."  The entire ending revolves around the Big Idea.  It happens to be a silly one, but even if it were brilliant, it would still fail as an ending because it doesn't involve your contributions of your previous choices or your friends in any way beyond an opaque number.

The fact that the ending doesn't make emotional or dramatic sense suddenly opens your mind to all the logical fallacies that are behind the explanations, as well.

[Grasich]

I don't really see why they need a motivation. This is one instance where I think "Lots of speculation for everyone" works very well. They SHOULD be mysterious otherworldly beings that are totally unknowable to organics. ME2 handled this very well, giving them lots of POSSIBLE motivations, without really saying "This is why they do it!".

imo, of course.

[effortname]

Nearly any motivation that fits within the actual themes of the game, as well as has been reinforced by the events of said game. What Bioware came up with is neither of these.

[Sc2mashimaro]

 Reapers are scarier and more potent if they're motivation is never fully revealed. The author may have some rationale in mind, but they should never disclose it fully unless it is central to the plot of the story. Since it never was in Mass Effect (you have pretty good motivation to just stop them) and the motivation hinted at by the game had to do with the Reapers viewing themselves as a higher life form (Each a nation unto themselves) that uses/harvests organics and synthesizes them with synthetics to create new "higher life forms" (culminating in "true Reapers"), there is no reason to eleaborate on their motivation or origin more than that in this trilogy.

It should have been left for the musings of another story, perhaps, but it really didn't need to be mentioned in Shepard's story. Shepard's story was never about "saving the galaxy" as an abstract concept, as Mordin mentioned, it was always about the individuals the player met along the way. The crew, Shepard's love interest especially: their fate and the fate of the things they cared about is what drove the story. Everything else, including the Reapers (except Soveriegn and Harbinger - who were primary antagonists) are just the background that keeps the plot moving.

[Malanek]

IMO the order/chaos argument should be binned. I think that the first species before the reapers, evolved into them(harbinger/first reaper). At that point it decided to see what would happen if life was wiped clean and left to evolve for 50,000 years as an experiment. It worked well, it discovered lots of new stuff, decided to archive it (in a new reaper or two) and start over.

The basis being that once a species evolves to a certain point they start becoming unoriginal with few fresh ideas. Constantly giving new species chances to evolve, without being influenced by more advanced species, is the only way to let them evolve down a natural path.

Modifié par Malanek999, 19 mars 2012 - 02:56 .

[Darknessfalls23]

social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/10085420

This what I think of the reaper motivation a purly evolutionary motivation. Makes a hell of lot more sense than "I want to save organic life for X reason"

[AntAras11]

Rules 1&3 are not at all necessary for good storytelling. (they are also pretty much the same rule )
Before the Rannoch confrontation, the only signs of "good will" we had seen from the reapers were some of Harbinger's rants (perfection through destruction and what not) which at the same time sounded arrogant and vague.

If BW came up with some selfless motivation for them that was better thought out and wanted to go that way, sure, I'm not against it, but it shouldn't be an end in itself.

Reapers are presented as superior beings, far more advanced, powerful and knowledgeable than any other known life form. Maintaining their superiority and obtaining even more power is good enough motivation for me.
Let's say that despite their capabilities they lack the ability to evolve, so they need to harvest advanced organic species to add to their core numbers (destroyers being more or less expendable) while also diversifying and preventing organic species from reaching a level where they could be a threat to their dominance.

It's not perfect but i came up with it in 2' based on the setting as it was after the ending of ME2, BW has a great team of writers to work with.

As for the motivation we actually got, it really doesn't make sense to me.
1) Destroying synthetics would be easier than harvesting organics. (Since it has been established that harvesting is not their purpose, but their alternative to wiping out a species completely)
2)We are told they destroy advanced civilization to save organic life from extinction, but we aren't told why they care about organic life surviving in the first place. There is no end game.

Modifié par AntAras11, 19 mars 2012 - 02:57 .

[Astbruchgefahr]

NoUserNameHere wrote...

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

They were simply a civilization that advanced to the point were they just see other races as resources. Some races 'deserve' or are sutiable for 'ascension', others merely as tools and some have no use at all. They also have the alterior motive of not wanting another civilization to rise and challenge them.

The creation of the relay system indicates that they wish societies to develop in a way that makes it easy to defeat them; if they were doing it to protect us from ourselves, they would take a more active role in shaping our development. If AIs are the problem, why don't the reapers just wipe out AIs?

[ShepnTali]

No known motivation would be great. Worked for Michael Myers in '78.

[KillerHappyFace]

My opinion on what should have been done with the Reapers' motivation is simple:

Don't say anything concrete.

The Reapers are supposed to be unknowable, so don't let players know what they're up to. This is what ticked me off most in the ending (yes, even including the plotholes.)

Throughout the series, they're completely foriegn and inscrutable. And then their purpose was explained through a few sentences of circular logic. "Speculation Everywhere" would have been a good angle with respect to the Reapers, and only the Reapers.

[Emberwake]

Dhraconus wrote...

They reap to reproduce.

Simple and logical. No reason to over complicate the issue.

This. Ten thousand times this. ME1 had the problem of giant evil robots who do bizarre evil things for reasons no one can ever understand. ME2 solved this problem beautifully: they are reproducing. It was both demonstrated and explained. It was simple and elegant.

We could also extrapolate that simple motivation if we wanted more information.

Why do they need to reproduce like this? Probably because their "perfect existence" is too orderly and static; they cannot evolve. They need to allow organics to evolve then harvest them into new reapers. 

Where did they come from? They started as organics, and devised a way to live forever. They created the reapers as the pinnacle of existence, and the cycle is what sustains them.

See how simple this was? We don't need dark energy or the Starchild to make this make sense.

Hold the line.

[CYRAX470]

I would preferred their origins stay shrouded in mystery. Even though Harbinger did a lot of trash talking in ME2, he didn't say anything that pointed towards a motivation. All the things he said only pointed to the fact that the Reapers are coming ,and can't be stopped.

All in all, MY preferred ending, let me say again, one I WOULD OF PREFERRED, is that the Reapers do this because they can. Because they have reached a level of power, that invalidates any type of logic or reasoning. The true embodiment of evil and relentlessness. They harvest and destroy civilizations because it sustains them. I'm a fan of truly evil beings that can't be reasoned with. Ever since I saw the conversation with Sovereign, it's what I was hoping for.

Modifié par CYRAX470, 19 mars 2012 - 03:01 .