223 réponses à ce sujet

[Emberwake]

Militarized wrote...

Lochias WH wrote...

To everyone saying that the reapers shouldn't have a motivation: that ship has sailed. It is established in ME2 that they are reproducing. They are almost literally screwing the galaxy.

Hold the line.

I answer that in my post without having it be about reproduction  

Except that the characters of ME2 actually come right out and say, "OMG they are reproducing," then EDI chimes in to confrim it. As a writer, you could hypothetically  come back and say, "Nope, they got it wrong," but in most cases that just comes off as poor writing.

They had a motivation. It ws a good, plausible motivation. Everything else is unnecessary.

Hold the line.

Modifié par Lochias WH, 19 mars 2012 - 03:12 .

[Meltemph]

Dhraconus wrote...

They reap to reproduce.

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

[Zuka999]

I mean, they already have basically said what their motivations are. They are the next step of evolution, they are the pinnacle of thought and life. They are literally blending together the entirety of a race and turning it into a super-mind. Each Reaper is essentially the combined mental capacity of every person thrown into the mix.

And somehow we wonder why they are so advanced? Imagine the power of a mind like that.

What I really wanted to know was.. was there some race hundreds of millions of years ago so advanced that they just kind of came to the conclusion that they had to combine? I mean, I'm imagining some sort of Simon/Kamina figure from Gurren Lagann standing up among his people and being like, "ITS TIME TO COMBINE!"

And they were all like, "... YES."

[Y3Y00]

 We mustn't be able to. Remember " there is a realm of existence far beyond your own you can't even begin to imagine it. I am beyond your comprehension. I am Sovereign "? They aren't supposed to be understood; remain inexplicable and awe-inspiring. No motivation must be revealed.

[Militarized]

Lochias WH wrote...

Militarized wrote...

Lochias WH wrote...

To everyone saying that the reapers shouldn't have a motivation: that ship has sailed. It is established in ME2 that they are reproducing. They are almost literally screwing the galaxy.

Hold the line.

I answer that in my post without having it be about reproduction  

Except that the characters of ME2 actually come right out and say, "OMG they are reproducing," then EDI chimes in to confrim it. As a writer, you could hypothetically  come back and say, "Nope, they got it wrong," but in most cases that just comes off as poor writing.

They had a motivation. It ws a good, plausible motivation. Everything else is unnecessary.

Hold the line.

I guess you didn't read what I wrote about their motivations . I took it in ME2 as our own perspective on what they were doing, as a way for us to fathom wtf we were seeing. We view it as reproduction but they obviously didn't use the Protheans for a Reaper(supposedly)... so, they pick special races out like Humans to "ascend" them into maintaining the Order I mentioned in my motivation post. 

Was just my idea though, I thought the idea from ME2 was just perfectly fine as well till they ruined it with ME3. 

[gee666]

millions of years ago a inter galactic war broke out, on the verge of extinction one side created the reapers to controle the development of lifeforms in our galaxy to ensure we never became a threat again, stoping races that were becoming technologicaly adavnced enough to become a threat....cue ME4


plot points they harvest to gain knowledge of how this galaxy is developing

they say they are unknowing to stop us learning the truth

the use of mass effect fields stops us developing intergalactic travel anoter safe guard

Modifié par gee666, 19 mars 2012 - 03:20 .

[Tovanus]

Dark Energy as a starting point concept works well. The idea that genetic diversity counters dark energy is non-sensical, but dark energy as a threat the Reapers care about makes perfect sense. People should really remember that dark energy is not a made up space magic concept. It's an actual, scientific term for something that legitimate theories believe will cause an eventual "heath death" for the universe. If the Reapers are trying to find a way to preserve as many civilizations as possible past this heat death, that could explain their actions. It is their method of reproduction as well, so they might not even be free of the instinct to increase their population (we have to assume that each invasion causes the loss of fewer reapers than they're able to create with the docile populations).

I completely disagree with the "we should not know their motivations." That would only be satisfying if they had never begun to explain cool concepts underlying their actions. Once they introduced the concept of them re-invading every 50k years (not just as a one-time return from destroying the Protheans, but something they had done regularly for millions of years), they introduced a question that they knew their audience would deeply want answers to. If they had not even given that, just left them as monsters who were doing nothing more than coming to wipe out organic life, then maybe they could have left them as lovecraftian horrors (though they would be less interesting, because lovecraftian horror gets old very quickly).

[Tony208]

They're on top of the galaxy. They want to stay there.
They reap to replenish their ranks.
They do it every 50,000 years so no one ever advances far enough to stop them.

It doesn't need to be complicated.

[sadako]

I'd go for Reapers are the real god of organics. They feel very entitled because they were the ones that started life on certain planets, see how they evolve, then consume every 50K years.

Since they are a hive mind, I'd assume if they made a reaper out of lower class races, the reaper would turn out stupid, hence the requirement of having a high standard of advancement before starting to reap.

Or you could say that they can process organic material into Eezo. (which would creep everyone out because they're essentially using life force for biotics, which shortens the user's effective life,

Dark Energy sounds a bit too Gurren Laggan-ish with their spiral and antispiral theory.

I'd go with this:
Reaper are the farmers, they plant single cell life on random planets
Returns to harvest the people they planted because they're entitled.

[ControlFreak12]

I'd have loved to find out that millions of years previously, the galaxy was dominated by a single race that grew unchecked and began exploring other galaxies, where they ran into a race of similarly developed beings in the Andromeda galaxy and got into a HUGE war, which the Andromedans won. In order to ensure another war would never come to pass, they created the Reapers and forced them to keep watch over all organic life in the Milky Way, guiding their technology and regularly exterminating them so that they would never develop to the point of an intergalactic war. In order to ensure that the Reapers would never return to their home galaxy, they were programmed with the belief that they had simply always existed (sovereign), and that their mission was simply the way of things.

[deaditegonzo102]

Is the Catalyst psychic? Omnipotent? Why ACCEPT ANYTHING THE LITTLE BASTARD SAYS? If he is those things, then it doesnt make any sense anyway; how could you HAVE CAUGHT HIM OFF GUARD?! And if he isnt, then theres no reason to believe a word of his nonsense! What I mean, in simplest terms, is: You have already proven him objectively wrong by making peace between the Geth and the Quarians, why accept that there has to be conflict between Synths and Organics? Maybe, due to the constant genetic cleansing organic life has undergone, we have adapted beyond such squabbles, who knows.

[ReapersFTW]

If I remember the dark energy one right, the mass effect relays produce dark energy every time they are used. They have a set pattern in which lifeforms evolve, so they find the mass relays at a certain point and start using them. Then to stop the over-production of dark energy consuming the galaxy, so they come every 50k years to harvest/exterminate life so that the dark energy can dissipate while the next cycle begins.

[FoxShadowblade]

Did their motives need to be awesome and galaxy shaking?

They use organic races to make more of themselves. They are at the top of the food chain. We exist because they allow it, we will end because they demand it. It's simple, and makes sense.

[SweetDaddySiki]

(I don't know much about the dark energy stuff, so I shoehorned my own ideas into it)


A billion years ago the first empire stretched across the galaxy. They achieved undreamt of levels of technological power and began research into the very nature of the universe itself. It was then they discovered Dark Energy and its relationship to Entropy. Dark energy was building up, leading to an increase in the rate of Entropy, which in turn lead to an acceleration in the increase of Dark Energy. The two fed on one another in an accelerating feedback loop.The scientists of this species computed that at the present levels, the buildup in dark energy would destroy the galaxy.

To slow the process they built the mass relay system to attract excess dark energy, channel and redistribute it across the galaxy. But this wasn't enough. Thier calculations indicated that thier civilisation itself was producing dark energy. Every civilisation creates entropic forces, as energy and matter are consumed and changed into new states. Everytime there is a change in the state, some energy is lost as entropy. This entropy leads to a buildup of dark energy. The natural processes of space faring civilisations were leading its premature demise.

So a great debate occurred, and the first empire came to one conclusion..To save organic life they must transcend. They could not put an end to entropy, but they could long delay the processes that would consume the galaxy. They constructed a fleet of powerful biosynthetic hulls, digitised thier minds into virtual form and downloaded them into the hulls. Thier civilisation, once a messy, inefficient organic culture now existed in efficient virtual form that had minimal information loss and minimal interaction with the enviroment. They would exist in cybernetic stasis with thier systems on low power for millennia.

So thier civilisation vanished, and the buildup of dark energy slowed for a time. But then new civilisations arose. The mass relays began to register a rise in the buildup of dark energy, so the machines activtaed themselves, and began to investigate. They saw the new civilisations were quickly spreading across the galaxy, and thier industrial process were creating an increase in entropy. At first the machines tried to warn the new races, but these races would not listen. Seeing no other choice, the machines decided that to save organic life, this new civilisation must be digitised as well. they knew the war itself would create a vast increase in dark energy, but they calculated that less dark energy would be created if they launched thier war than if they allowed the other species to continue along thier path.

And so began the first reaper war. This was a very long and difficult war, and when it ended the reapers knew they had to create an orderly process that would allow them to harvest the up and coming species so as to minimise the chaos and entropy. So the citadel was created, and the mass relays were tied into them to allow the reapers to control the process of expansion along predictable lines. The next Harvest was much more orderly, and the pattern for the cycles was established. A new spacefaring civilisation would arise, use the mass relays for transportation, and settle on the citadel. When the mass relays registered a large enough buildup in dark energy, the reapers would awaken, harvest the space faring species, digitise thier civilisations and then go back into a low powered stasis. The pattern would continue until the end of time itself, when the forces of entropy could no longer be held at bay. Then the reapers would escape the universe into a new one.
 

[Tony208]

FoxShadowblade wrote...

Did their motives need to be awesome and galaxy shaking?

They use organic races to make more of themselves. They are at the top of the food chain. We exist because they allow it, we will end because they demand it. It's simple, and makes sense.

Exactly, we're like a crop to them except we get harvested every 50,000 years.

[ticklefist]

Deleted. Argumentative.

Modifié par ticklefist, 19 mars 2012 - 03:27 .

[MaYtriX]

Whatever happened to the old fashioned mystery?
Harbinger said in the first game "Our existence is something beyond your imagination"

[jarrettwold]

I was kicking around a retcon using the keepers and I came up with a relatively simple explanation of the cycle and the reapers.

Fermi's paradox is explained, for the most part by civilizations being screwed before they got out of the cradle of their own solar system. This can be due to habitat destruction, overpopulation, being smashed by an asteroid or experience a gamma ray burst, a supernova, and nuclear holocaust.

Once they get out of the cradle, they're able to explore beyond their solar system their technological advances become impressive. Their impact suddenly becomes much less localized. If two alien races meet each other and go to war, they can then start dropping asteroids on each other's planets. Invent energy weapons that can devastate a planet. Their impact becomes much larger.

As time goes on, given sufficiently advanced resources, you can start harvesting vast amounts of energy, think Dyson spheres. You keep climbing that scale, and it is not far fetched to reach a point where you can destroy solar systems. If you can destroy solar systems, given enough advances you could probably destroy galaxies.

The Reapers have been around for millions of years. They have inevitably seen this. They don't owe, in Mass Effect, anyone of that cycle any explanation. They've had their 50,000 years. What that cycle has done with it is, up to them. They have no reason to trust, argue, bargain or inform any particular cycle. They go through and cull anything sufficiently advanced to prevent wars that would become large enough or advanced enought to threaten the universe itself. It's malevolent, amoral and guess what when you get to be that old, you just don't care.

So there's a valid explanation and argument for Reapers.

Now, to those of you who would dismiss this as invalid. The United States and many other countries spend long, long periods of time and money to prevent any other countries from becoming nuclear powers. Nobody who is sane, thinks Iran should be allowed to have nuclear weapons. Do we have to explain that to Iran beyond a very simple "we don't want you to have them, because we don't trust you." ? Nope. Israel, and to a lessor extent the US are willing to go to war to stop them from acquiring nuclear weapons.

So expand that to thinking as a galactic race, that has been around so long, that they've seen millions of years worth of civilizations come and go, would even proffer an explanation other than "we will destroy you all, because we are legion" is absurd. They wouldn't even think on the same timescale that we do. Their job at the end of the day, is to prevent anything that could threaten the universe, ever.

Anyhow Reapers as bad guys changes with that explanation.

Modifié par jarrettwold, 19 mars 2012 - 03:26 .

[Zuka999]

I may as well clarify what I was trying to get across earlier:

With the Dark Energy concept, I read it this way. The Reapers (however it is they came about) are the combined mental capacity of entire races preserved forever in Reaper form so that in the 50,000 years between cycles they can travel to dark space and work on a scientific solution to the issue of Dark Energy, which will legitimately end the universe even in real life (probably). In this case, what they have been saying all along is entirely true!

"We are each a nation". Meaning, they are literally entire nations of people blended together into another realm of existence and intelligence.

"We are beyond your comprehension". Well, yeah! Who would have imagined the Reapers were trying to solve a problem like that? Does Shepard have any knowledge of the field of quantum physics? Hell no. Is he even slightly qualified to be making a decision on it, when he inevitably battles his way to that point? Hell no!

The original ending would have been so fantastic because on the one hand you're given the choice to stick to your convictions: destroy the Reapers, give life a fighting chance! See all those loose ends, have your bittersweet ending. But realize that in a few billion years, Dark Energy will eliminate all life.

Or make the tougher choice. Preserve the current races  in Reaper form, and just maybe find a solution to Dark Energy. Thus preserving the future for further cycles. What better way to give the Reapers their way to win?

At least this isn't a total insult to the Reapers as villains. They are most definitely bad guys. OR at least morally ambiguous. I mean, sure, they wanted to preserve the universe and all. They're these badass overmind space-squid superscientists. But you know what? They're not afraid to just bust out the guns and literally murder everyone in the galaxy and FORCE them to help fix the problem. They're totally fine with brutally murdering billions of people to further their goals.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

RedMike512 wrote...

Your criteria are stupid. They essentially assume the reapers aren't evil. You're essentially saying, create a good motivation that makes sense but also doesn't make the reapers look bad.

They are machines. They don't have a concept of good or evil. They don't need to. You are anthropomorphizing them. That's what's hanging up this entire discussion: anthropomorphizing. They have a motivation of survival. Survival of the fittest. Advanced organics are to them like cattle are to us. They assimilate advanced organics to create new reapers and incorporate any new innovations these advanced organics might have made into their own.

The fate of their creators has long been forgotten. It is buried deep in the memory banks. It is only recalled as the created always will rebel against their creators. We are your salvation through your destruction: you are ready for harvesting for ascension to become one of us -- the pinnacle of evolution. Their actions seem totally logical to them. No emotion is attached. No value of good or evil is attached.

[elmephd1]

To be honest reproduction as a motivation is a good one, if only because of their methods of reproduction. Reproduction via genocide, does make them seem like the anti-life.

[nevar00]

They just do. They believe themselves to be "the pinnacle of evolution". They are immortal. They come in, "ascend" a chosen race by turning them into a reaper, destroy the unworthy, and wait another 50,000 years. I thought that was fine. We didn't need any other motivation.

[718bc]

Apologies if someone else has already mentioned this as a motivation, I didnt read the whole thread. My theory for reaper motivation always involved this: we know that the reapers have been around reaping for millions of years. Essentially, if it weren't for the reapers, humans probably never would have even developed at all - a million years ago, earth would have been colonized by some alien species, and humans never would have had room to evolve to what we are now. Basically, I thought reaper motivation would be something of a twisted kind of benevolence: we harvest species after they have had their moment in the sun to make room for new growth. The individuals that we harvest live on for all eternity inside the "mind" of a new reaper. And by the way, by killing Sovereign you basically killed billions of ancient alien souls. Now, do you stop the reapers, and basically let the 10 or so currently dominant sentient species selfishly overrun the whole galaxy? Or do you allow your people to "ascend" to the blissful eternity inside a reaper's mind, to make room for new things to flourish?

Seemed interesting to me at least, and perhaps more sensible than "we build robots to kill you to stop you from building robots to kill you".

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

Zuka999 wrote...
But realize that in a few billion years, Dark Energy will eliminate all life.

This is going to happen in the Milky Way anyway. For example, in our own solar system, in 500,000,000 yrs the earth will become uninhabitable due to solar radiation like Haestroms sun, just from the sun's natural aging.

Eventually, Hawking predicts that the age of stars we're now in will end and the universe will go dark. All that will be left is dark matter.

[Zuka999]

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...

Zuka999 wrote...
But realize that in a few billion years, Dark Energy will eliminate all life.

This is going to happen in the Milky Way anyway. For example, in our own solar system, in 500,000,000 yrs the earth will become uninhabitable due to solar radiation like Haestroms sun, just from the sun's natural aging.

Eventually, Hawking predicts that the age of stars we're now in will end and the universe will go dark. All that will be left is dark matter.

In ME2, the death of stars like Haestrom's was attributed to Dark Energy. Which is why solving the issue of Dark Energy - something universal in scale and time - would preserve the universe. Possibly forever? 

I read that the original ending had a 3rd option. Which was to use the Crucible for its intended purpose: To change the laws of physics to eliminate Dark Energy. Which has interesting implications, like, what the hell do you do about the Reapers, then?