I also believe it would be possible. A Reaper was defeated before, now you discovered their weakness, gunships got improved to fight specifically Reapers, you can take advantage of different tactics of different species (opposite of Protheans' era), etc.
I sort of expected that it'd be shown in the end (that * war assets), to be honest.
Yes, it'd cost many lives. Earth'd be probably lost among other things but really, who cares about Earth? I mean a life has expanded so much and Shepard said like 5 minutes before the final battle taken a place that an end of Thessia doesn't mean an end of Asari race. I got a feeling ME3 misinterprets "save Earth" as a purpose of whole ME journey and that's why everything is done in order to preserve just that planet.
Sorry, back to the theme - Yes, it seems plausible to me.
Was victory possible using conventional means?
Débuté par
Jesusland
, mars 24 2012 11:33
Retour en haut
#127
Posté 25 mars 2012 - 01:33
antony1197
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Been thinking about that, makes me wonder if modders will build after that if bioware doesnt change it...jameshawking wrote...
Initially it was supposed to be possible.
In-game you max out at a bit over 7k, so if you went past 7,000 you were supposed to actually, militarily, be winning that fight.
keep in mind, that was when it was supposed to be the Dark Matter ending, so beating the Reapers, at that time, was supposed to possibly be a bad thing.
#128
Posté 25 mars 2012 - 01:34
RGFrog
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Oh, and Shep uses a single Cain shot to take out a reaper ground to air arty unit. A single cain shot...
#129
Posté 25 mars 2012 - 01:35
SnakeStrike8
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Jesusland wrote...
Looked like the combined fleets of the galaxy were holding their own when the Normandy broke off. Could the Alliance have prevailed against the Reaper fleet using conventional means? Discuss.
Theoretically, yes. We have a pretty solid fleet, with weaponry proven to be capable of at least damaging Reapers (Thanix cannons and Javelins), and remember that the fleet that actually attacked the Reapers at the start (Sword fleet) was only a portion of our overall fighting capability. Shield fleet was sitting back with the Crucible. If there was no Crucible, then that part of the fleet could also lay the boots to the Reapers.
The only real problem with conventional fighting when it comes to Reapers is that it's impossible within the context of the Mass Effect universe. As soon as the battle starts to turn against the Reapers, all they need to do if FTL out of the Sol system. Ships at FTL speeds cannot be tracked, and we know that the Reapers have no problem FTL-ing their way to different star systems. Mass relays are just more convenient for them, and they have no supply lines or colonies we could attack to starve them. Further, they have no strategic objectives that we can attack to force them into a confrontation, but we have plenty of those. A force as small as five Reaper capital ships could warp in above, say, Thessia, burn up a few cities from orbit, and then warp out again before we can send in a force large enough to threaten them in straight battle. Then they reappear above Palaven, do the same, and vanish into FTL once more. And they could keep this up for centuries if the need to, eventually starving us organics into making frustrated and foolish decisions. At best, we'd end up in a stalemate; we can bleed the Reapers until they can't burn out entire planets, but we'd never be able to pin them down for a killing blow.
Bottom line is that we can win the battles, but not the war.
#130
Posté 25 mars 2012 - 01:37
Scyldemort
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Yes. Victory was indeed possible using conventional means.
A pyrrhic victory, to be sure, but victory.
Relying instead upon the Crucible produced a cadmean victory.
re: winning battle but not the war
They do need supplies. They need organic beings to turn into organo-slurry to make new Reapers. It would require a new strategy to be sure, maybe even a new way of colonizing the galaxy. Society would become hyper-militarized and consolidated. No planet would be left without the resources to defend itself against a significant Reaper attack. Every Reaper ship destroyed is another ship that the Reapers couldn't replace withou harvesting a planet. In this context, if the Reapers lose two ships for every planet they conquer, we're winning on the numbers, and even in a worst case scenario the next cycle will have a much easier time of things than we did. Eventually, after centuries of this style of warfare, the Reapers cease to be a meaningful threat. Meanwhile, Reaper technology is stagnant and the technology of everyone else is advancing at a steady clip.
A pyrrhic victory, to be sure, but victory.
Relying instead upon the Crucible produced a cadmean victory.
re: winning battle but not the war
They do need supplies. They need organic beings to turn into organo-slurry to make new Reapers. It would require a new strategy to be sure, maybe even a new way of colonizing the galaxy. Society would become hyper-militarized and consolidated. No planet would be left without the resources to defend itself against a significant Reaper attack. Every Reaper ship destroyed is another ship that the Reapers couldn't replace withou harvesting a planet. In this context, if the Reapers lose two ships for every planet they conquer, we're winning on the numbers, and even in a worst case scenario the next cycle will have a much easier time of things than we did. Eventually, after centuries of this style of warfare, the Reapers cease to be a meaningful threat. Meanwhile, Reaper technology is stagnant and the technology of everyone else is advancing at a steady clip.
Modifié par Scyldemort, 25 mars 2012 - 01:42 .
#131
Posté 25 mars 2012 - 01:44
SNascimento
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Seriously, there is no evidence that the repaers could be defeated. All major battles were lost, in the galaxy map before the Battle for Earth the reapers are pushing agaisnt all systems.
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The strongest argument is that the reapers would be stretched thin. But this is just a supposition based in no facts. Just look at the Battle for Earth, even though the reapers are everywhere, there are dozens of them to fight the combined fleet of the galaxy.
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The strongest argument is that the reapers would be stretched thin. But this is just a supposition based in no facts. Just look at the Battle for Earth, even though the reapers are everywhere, there are dozens of them to fight the combined fleet of the galaxy.
#132
Posté 25 mars 2012 - 01:49
Clayless
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Scyldemort wrote...
Yes. Victory was indeed possible using conventional means.
A pyrrhic victory, to be sure, but victory.
Relying instead upon the Crucible produced a cadmean victory.
re: winning battle but not the war
They do need supplies. They need organic beings to turn into organo-slurry to make new Reapers. It would require a new strategy to be sure, maybe even a new way of colonizing the galaxy. Society would become hyper-militarized and consolidated. No planet would be left without the resources to defend itself against a significant Reaper attack. Every Reaper ship destroyed is another ship that the Reapers couldn't replace withou harvesting a planet. In this context, if the Reapers lose two ships for every planet they conquer, we're winning on the numbers, and even in a worst case scenario the next cycle will have a much easier time of things than we did. Eventually, after centuries of this style of warfare, the Reapers cease to be a meaningful threat. Meanwhile, Reaper technology is stagnant and the technology of everyone else is advancing at a steady clip.
Lets just hope they don't shoot back, don't make their own attack plans, and can't brainwash people.
#133
Posté 25 mars 2012 - 01:51
SnakeStrike8
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Scyldemort wrote...
re: winning battle but not the war
They do need supplies. They need organic beings to turn into organo-slurry to make new Reapers. It would require a new strategy to be sure, maybe even a new way of colonizing the galaxy. Society would become hyper-militarized and consolidated. No planet would be left without the resources to defend itself against a significant Reaper attack. Every Reaper ship destroyed is another ship that the Reapers couldn't replace withou harvesting a planet. In this context, if the Reapers lose two ships for every planet they conquer, we're winning on the numbers, and even in a worst case scenario the next cycle will have a much easier time of things than we did. Eventually, after centuries of this style of warfare, the Reapers cease to be a meaningful threat. Meanwhile, Reaper technology is stagnant and the technology of everyone else is advancing at a steady clip.
That's not what I meant. If the Reapers get into a situation wherein they find themselves losing space battles against organics, I'd think that their primary goal would become survival rather than organic harvesting. They'd stop landing in cities and sending out husks, and rather they'd just burn the cities from orbit. In the absolute worst case, they'd just leave the galaxy and dissapear into dark space for a while. We still don't know why they need to come around every 50,00 years on the dot- all we have is some starchild ****** about synthetics and organics topping each other- so it's reasonable to assume that they could just lay low if they need to. Our alliances won't last forever; eventually we'd end up with a post Rachni wars sort of situation, in which galactic rebuilding takes precedence over military combat, and as Reaper attacks grow less and less frequent, the general public would simply stop caring. Governments would stop pouring funds into warship construction and instead into city rebuilding. We'd slide into apathy once more. It may take a few decades to get there, but still.
#134
Posté 25 mars 2012 - 01:55
Elyiia
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SNascimento wrote...
Seriously, there is no evidence that the repaers could be defeated. All major battles were lost, in the galaxy map before the Battle for Earth the reapers are pushing agaisnt all systems.
.
The strongest argument is that the reapers would be stretched thin. But this is just a supposition based in no facts. Just look at the Battle for Earth, even though the reapers are everywhere, there are dozens of them to fight the combined fleet of the galaxy.
The highest concentration of Reaper forces are on Earth because humans are the most valuable speices in the cycle. We're the ones that are going to be turned into a capital ship.
As for all major battles lost, look at the Miracle of Palavan. We can win, it would just require smart tactics.
That's partly why the Protheans lost, they had a single tactic, when it was countered by the Reapers they started to lose badly.
#135
Posté 25 mars 2012 - 01:56
TheMerchantMan
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Yes. In fact this was the very first cycle where this was true. In all other cycles the Reapers attacked without warning at the heart of galactic society took over the only means of reliable transportation and set in form a long and burdensome war of eliminating whatever fractured resistence was left.
This cycle changed everything. The Reapers had no control over the mass relays, galactic leadership is secure, if not unified. Though preparation was minimal it was far greater than ever before.
The Allied Forces could have won, indeed even the galaxy map supports this, at high level readiness it says. "Allied Forces holding steady; Winning Key locations"
Naturally it couldn't be all conventional. Hit & run, divide and conquer. A direct attack like on Earth would never be able to defeat the entire Reaper force. But a victory here alone would mean a major turning point in the war.
The Reapers were most heavily concentrated on Earth. Only Pavelan received a similarly heavy assault and by the point of the Earth assault we are made to understand that the Turians have begun to hold their ground.
The canon is clear, a war with the Reapers in this cycle is winnable. It will mean heavy losses sacrifices and lots of running, but it can be won.
That ending would have been infinitely better, heck even more bittersweet, variable and certainly sensical than what we received.
And while this is just conjecture.
Had the Alliance used all their researchers to think up something better than the crucible to fight the Reapers, I think they well could have, maybe a superdreadnought capable of going toe-to-toe
with the Reapers. If not certainly the resources could be better allocated on something that isn't a blatant genocide machine.
This cycle changed everything. The Reapers had no control over the mass relays, galactic leadership is secure, if not unified. Though preparation was minimal it was far greater than ever before.
The Allied Forces could have won, indeed even the galaxy map supports this, at high level readiness it says. "Allied Forces holding steady; Winning Key locations"
Naturally it couldn't be all conventional. Hit & run, divide and conquer. A direct attack like on Earth would never be able to defeat the entire Reaper force. But a victory here alone would mean a major turning point in the war.
The Reapers were most heavily concentrated on Earth. Only Pavelan received a similarly heavy assault and by the point of the Earth assault we are made to understand that the Turians have begun to hold their ground.
The canon is clear, a war with the Reapers in this cycle is winnable. It will mean heavy losses sacrifices and lots of running, but it can be won.
That ending would have been infinitely better, heck even more bittersweet, variable and certainly sensical than what we received.
And while this is just conjecture.
Had the Alliance used all their researchers to think up something better than the crucible to fight the Reapers, I think they well could have, maybe a superdreadnought capable of going toe-to-toe
with the Reapers. If not certainly the resources could be better allocated on something that isn't a blatant genocide machine.
#136
Posté 25 mars 2012 - 02:01
Zkyire
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CrazyCatDude wrote...
I think if they'd spent those months building dreadnaughts instead of the crucible, refitting all their ships with Thanix cannons and Javelin launchers etc, they would have been able to take the Reapers in a straight up fight. After all, the Thanix was reverse engineered from the Reaper's own weapons. Add to that sending a team to reverse engineer the barriers on the reaper you destroyed on Rannoch (Have the Geth do it, since they can't be indoctrinated or huskified) and you'd have had much higher chance, since you could go toe to toe on equal terms.
Alliance and Turian ships are already supposed to have the Thanix cannon widely in use.
The combined galactic fleets alongside the Alliance and Turian fleets who would have been using Thanix cannons.. the Reapers could have been defeated.
..and yet the ME3 battles ignored that and went for "lol i created synthetics to wipe out organics every 50,000 years in order to stop synthetics from wiping out organics lol"
#137
Posté 25 mars 2012 - 02:01
Clayless
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You're forgetting that "holding your own" against the Reapers means you will be fighting FOR them in a few months.
#138
Posté 25 mars 2012 - 02:05
Hashbeth
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It depends. The fleets of man were fairly beefy, but then again they did some very strange things.
1) Full broadsides. Why didn't chunks of the fleet focus on different reapers, instead of shooting a wall of fire willy-nilly? It seems that, with focus fire, the fleet could try to knock-out high value reaper targets (capital/dreadnought ships) and then move to weaker destroyers
2) Firing without aiming specifically at the discovered weak spots: So you know how we figured out that shooting a reaper while it's preparing to fire (i.e. in the actual cannon.) This would be understandable if the fleet was focusing fire, but if they're just attacking 'free-style' then you'd think they'd exploit this strategy.
Things in favor of the fleet:
1) Not all the reapers are at Earth
2) Huge numbers of ships
3) Extremely powerful focus-fire potential
4) Wide range of skill sets, providing a mix of strategies (making prediction and countermovements difficult)
It's difficult to weigh the outcome of the battle, considering how strange the actions of the fleet are in the opening cut scenes. However, if we assume that the fleet started to get its act together after the initial stages of the fight, then it is quite probable that the fleet, whether successful or not, could inflict very heavy reaper casualties.
1) Full broadsides. Why didn't chunks of the fleet focus on different reapers, instead of shooting a wall of fire willy-nilly? It seems that, with focus fire, the fleet could try to knock-out high value reaper targets (capital/dreadnought ships) and then move to weaker destroyers
2) Firing without aiming specifically at the discovered weak spots: So you know how we figured out that shooting a reaper while it's preparing to fire (i.e. in the actual cannon.) This would be understandable if the fleet was focusing fire, but if they're just attacking 'free-style' then you'd think they'd exploit this strategy.
Things in favor of the fleet:
1) Not all the reapers are at Earth
2) Huge numbers of ships
3) Extremely powerful focus-fire potential
4) Wide range of skill sets, providing a mix of strategies (making prediction and countermovements difficult)
It's difficult to weigh the outcome of the battle, considering how strange the actions of the fleet are in the opening cut scenes. However, if we assume that the fleet started to get its act together after the initial stages of the fight, then it is quite probable that the fleet, whether successful or not, could inflict very heavy reaper casualties.
#139
Posté 25 mars 2012 - 02:06
Zkyire
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TheMerchantMan wrote...
Yes. In fact this was the very first cycle where this was true. In all other cycles the Reapers attacked without warning at the heart of galactic society took over the only means of reliable transportation and set in form a long and burdensome war of eliminating whatever fractured resistence was left.
This cycle changed everything. The Reapers had no control over the mass relays, galactic leadership is secure, if not unified. Though preparation was minimal it was far greater than ever before.
The Allied Forces could have won, indeed even the galaxy map supports this, at high level readiness it says. "Allied Forces holding steady; Winning Key locations"
Naturally it couldn't be all conventional. Hit & run, divide and conquer. A direct attack like on Earth would never be able to defeat the entire Reaper force. But a victory here alone would mean a major turning point in the war.
The Reapers were most heavily concentrated on Earth. Only Pavelan received a similarly heavy assault and by the point of the Earth assault we are made to understand that the Turians have begun to hold their ground.
The canon is clear, a war with the Reapers in this cycle is winnable. It will mean heavy losses sacrifices and lots of running, but it can be won.
That ending would have been infinitely better, heck even more bittersweet, variable and certainly sensical than what we received.
And while this is just conjecture.
Had the Alliance used all their researchers to think up something better than the crucible to fight the Reapers, I think they well could have, maybe a superdreadnought capable of going toe-to-toe
with the Reapers. If not certainly the resources could be better allocated on something that isn't a blatant genocide machine.
Plant massive nuclear weapons inside buildings in a city, make sure the Reapers are made known it is populated and sparsely defended.
Wait for them to come.
Detonate the nukes and wipe them out.
Not very paragon but it'll get the job done.
Or create a minefield around a Mass Relay, leak intel to Reaper forces of an operation going on in that system. Wait for them to jump in; detonate the mines.
Hell, they could even use civilian ships. They don't have to be well armed or anything. Just basic civilian transports, filled with high-yield warheads, and send them on automated suicide runs at the Reapers in massive numbers.
Unfortunately Mass Effect 3 took the approach of "They have to be military ships only, fighting in conventional ship to ship warfare only" approach.
Reapers could have been defeated, easily.
#140
Posté 25 mars 2012 - 02:06
Tom Lehrer
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Arl Raylen wrote...
It's just not possible; the Codex makes it more clear.
Bioware made sure to at least tie up that loose end because the idea of crashing ships at FTL into other ships to win has been used in quite a few of the Sci Fi books I've read (Halo and Saga of Seven Suns if I recall correctly...)
Back when they did the Cerberus News there was one were a Turian terrorist group FTL crashed a ship into a major city on a Turian colony. The resulting war with them is the same one Garrus talks about when we first ask about who Victus is.
Modifié par Tom Lehrer, 25 mars 2012 - 02:07 .
#141
Posté 25 mars 2012 - 02:12
Corvus74
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Our_Last_Scene wrote...
You're forgetting that "holding your own" against the Reapers means you will be fighting FOR them in a few months.
Fighting against them doesn't get you indoctrinated.
And besides, there is a way to detect the indoctrinated - both Prothean VIs we meet are able to do so.
#142
Posté 25 mars 2012 - 02:12
SNascimento
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.Zkyire wrote...
Plant massive nuclear weapons inside buildings in a city, make sure the Reapers are made known it is populated and sparsely defended.
Wait for them to come.
Detonate the nukes and wipe them out.
Not very paragon but it'll get the job done.
Or create a minefield around a Mass Relay, leak intel to Reaper forces of an operation going on in that system. Wait for them to jump in; detonate the mines.
Hell, they could even use civilian ships. They don't have to be well armed or anything. Just basic civilian transports, filled with high-yield warheads, and send them on automated suicide runs at the Reapers in massive numbers.
Unfortunately Mass Effect 3 took the approach of "They have to be military ships only, fighting in conventional ship to ship warfare only" approach.
Reapers could have been defeated, easily.
No, they can not.
.
People here are just creating scenarios and saying they would work, with no evidance whatsoever to back them.
#143
Posté 25 mars 2012 - 02:13
KingG528
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For sure. Hell, we see one go down from the turian dreadnought.
#144
Posté 25 mars 2012 - 02:14
Welsh Inferno
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I'm sorry there is just no way to beat them conventionally. If all the races believed Shepard and we planned before they arrived however... then possibly.. a slim chance.
#145
Posté 25 mars 2012 - 02:14
NA1
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I haven't read this thread, but judging from the first page... none of you know what 'conventional warfare' means.
#146
Posté 25 mars 2012 - 02:15
Zkyire
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SNascimento wrote...
.Zkyire wrote...
Plant massive nuclear weapons inside buildings in a city, make sure the Reapers are made known it is populated and sparsely defended.
Wait for them to come.
Detonate the nukes and wipe them out.
Not very paragon but it'll get the job done.
Or create a minefield around a Mass Relay, leak intel to Reaper forces of an operation going on in that system. Wait for them to jump in; detonate the mines.
Hell, they could even use civilian ships. They don't have to be well armed or anything. Just basic civilian transports, filled with high-yield warheads, and send them on automated suicide runs at the Reapers in massive numbers.
Unfortunately Mass Effect 3 took the approach of "They have to be military ships only, fighting in conventional ship to ship warfare only" approach.
Reapers could have been defeated, easily.
No, they can not.
.
People here are just creating scenarios and saying they would work, with no evidance whatsoever to back them.
You know I never thought about it like that.
Your logic has opened my eyes.
Thank you for your compelling insight on this matter.
#147
Posté 25 mars 2012 - 02:18
Clayless
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Corvus74 wrote...
Our_Last_Scene wrote...
You're forgetting that "holding your own" against the Reapers means you will be fighting FOR them in a few months.
Fighting against them doesn't get you indoctrinated.
And besides, there is a way to detect the indoctrinated - both Prothean VIs we meet are able to do so.
Yeah, being in close proximity gets you indoctrinated.
Let's just hope there's not trillions of people on planets that can become indoctrinated eh.
#148
Posté 25 mars 2012 - 02:20
joshko
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I think it is. One of the points stressed in ME three was that this cycle had a fighting chance because so many different cultures came together and brought their own strength the the fight. Something that apparently never happened in a previous cycle (at least that's what I go from it).
It makes sense too. It's obvious from ME 2 that the Reapers were not interested in the other species, or at least did not take as much interest in them. ether way they saw humanity as the dominant species or threat in the on coming war.
So naturally they prepare to fight humanity, next thing they know they're fighting 5 or 6 different species with different methods and tactics all just as dangerous as humans. On top of that these species are coordinating with the each other.
It makes sense too. It's obvious from ME 2 that the Reapers were not interested in the other species, or at least did not take as much interest in them. ether way they saw humanity as the dominant species or threat in the on coming war.
So naturally they prepare to fight humanity, next thing they know they're fighting 5 or 6 different species with different methods and tactics all just as dangerous as humans. On top of that these species are coordinating with the each other.
#149
Posté 25 mars 2012 - 02:23
Mixorz
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No. Hackett said it couldn't be done. If it was possible then the Crucible never would've needed to be built. All it did in the end is buy more time for Shep to win.
Plus, let's not forget that this cycle went on for millions of years. The difference in this cycle is Shepard, and only Shepard.
Plus, let's not forget that this cycle went on for millions of years. The difference in this cycle is Shepard, and only Shepard.
#150
Posté 25 mars 2012 - 02:28
Zkyire
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Mixorz wrote...
No. Hackett said it couldn't be done. If it was possible then the Crucible never would've needed to be built. All it did in the end is buy more time for Shep to win.
Plus, let's not forget that this cycle went on for millions of years. The difference in this cycle is Shepard, and only Shepard.
And united galactic military forces.
And intact galactic leadership.
And a functioning mass relay network.
And Thanix cannons on Alliance and Turian ships (Reaper weapon).
So.. more than Shepard.
Modifié par Zkyire, 25 mars 2012 - 02:29 .
