225 réponses à ce sujet

[chengthao]

i believe the endings were well explained and many ppl have already stated it


SPACE MAGIC

[Kajan451]

They are really big fans of the Matrix Movie series and wanted to cosplay Matrix 3.

So they hired some guy, called Shepard, to play Neo and casted the roll of The Architect (Starchild) and Smith (Harbringer).

And while Smith and his lookalikes take over earth Neo meets with the Architect to discuss the fate of mankind.

[HighFlyingDwarf]

The Reapers are in on a scam with the council races. Stealing all your money through the use of...DLC?

[gidoru]

Actually the reasoning for the Reaper cycle in Mass Effect 3 DOES make sense as a reason itself, but perhaps not in the contexts of the previous games.

The problem here is that most people seem to misrepresent the reasoning as: The reapers(synthetic life) destroy organic life so that synthetic life does not destroy organic life.

Now it is true, this statement does not make sense. This reasoning is circular. However, this is not the reasoning that is provided within the game, this is what some people have decided to mischaracterize the reasoning to be.

The ACTUAL reason given to you is Mass Effect 3 is as follows: The Reapers(one distinct group of synthetic life) destroys all and ONLY advanced organic life, leaving more primative organic life untouched, so that synethic life(other than the Reapers themselves) does not completely destroy ALL organic life in the galaxy. The hidden premise here being tha all and only advanced organic life create synthetic life that eventually turns against them.

The clear difference here being that the Reapers do not destroy ALL organic life, by destroying only those capable of creating synthetic life they prevent organic life from being completely wiped out by other synthetic life. In this manner the Reapers actually allow for the preservation of SOME organic life to continue to exist in the galaxy while preserving the rest.

Now if you take any amount of time to consider these two statements, you will realize they are in fact not at all saying the same thing. The first statement, the misrepresentation of what is said in ME3 does not make sense, the second accurate statement does actually make sense as a piece of reasoning itself.

Now to the point of it not making sense in the context of the game.
1. The reapers claim that their reasons are beyond the understanding of organic life. It is suggested from talking to Legion that a Reapers thoughts are so massive as to be incomprehensible. If this is the case how can the Reapers reasoning then be so easily explained in a single sentence? It has been suggested that maybe the Reapers are kept in the dark, but everything we have experienced in ME1 and ME2 in our interactions with the Reapers suggests this is not the case.
2. In ME2 you hear Harbinger discussing the 'viability' of certain races, presumably to be harvested for whatever purpose. Some are mentioned to be too primative or ill suited, humans are mentioned to be well suited. But the question is, if the sole requirement is that a civilization is advanced enough and the goal is to preserve said civilization, why would you have to access a particular species viability, this should have nothing to do with the equation.
3. The reason does not really fit the story presented in the games so far. The Reapers are presented as some menancing even somewhat sinister force. For the Reaper do actually go through so much trouble to actually preserve organic life despite whatever cold machine reasoning brought about that solution, just seems wrong.
4. There are numerous instances of synthetic life and organic life getting along just fine. The Geth, EDI ect.
5. The Reapers are shown to be able to EASILY dominate synthetic life. They are capable of and do control the Geth on atleast 2 instances. If they can dominate synthetic life so easily, clearly they simply take control of the threatening synthetic life and either destroy them or order them not to wipe out organics.

Modifié par gidoru, 27 mars 2012 - 11:01 .

[Vincent Rosevalliant]

gidoru wrote...

The problem here is that most people seem to misrepresent the reasoning as: The reapers(synthetic life) destroy organic life so that synthetic life does not destroy organic life.

The ACTUAL reason given to you is Mass Effect 3 is as follows: The Reapers(one distinct group of synthetic life) destroys all and ONLY advanced organic life, leaving more primative organic life untouched, so that synethic life(other than the Reapers themselves) does not completely destroy ALL organic life in the galaxy. The hidden premise here being tha all and only advanced organic life create synthetic life that eventually turns against them.

The clear difference here being that the Reapers do not destroy ALL organic life, by destroying only those capable of creating synthetic life they prevent organic life from being completely wiped out by other synthetic life. In this manner the Reapers actually allow for the preservation of SOME organic life to continue to exist in the galaxy while preserving the rest.

Now if you take any amount of time to consider these two statements, you will realize they are in fact not at all saying the same thing. The first statement, the misrepresentation of what is said in ME3 does not make sense, the second accurate statement does actually make sense as a piece of reasoning itself.

Nice try. But I will only concede to your logic if you can answer me this question:
If the Reapers wanted to protect life of organics from te synthetics, why don't they JUST KILL THE SYNTHETICS and leave organincs alone?

As for the OP: I don't know. It's why I played the game to get some answers......

Modifié par Vincent Rosevalliant, 27 mars 2012 - 11:38 .

[tetrisblock4x1]

Vincent Rosevalliant wrote...

gidoru wrote...

The problem here is that most people seem to misrepresent the reasoning as: The reapers(synthetic life) destroy organic life so that synthetic life does not destroy organic life.

The ACTUAL reason given to you is Mass Effect 3 is as follows: The Reapers(one distinct group of synthetic life) destroys all and ONLY advanced organic life, leaving more primative organic life untouched, so that synethic life(other than the Reapers themselves) does not completely destroy ALL organic life in the galaxy. The hidden premise here being tha all and only advanced organic life create synthetic life that eventually turns against them.

The clear difference here being that the Reapers do not destroy ALL organic life, by destroying only those capable of creating synthetic life they prevent organic life from being completely wiped out by other synthetic life. In this manner the Reapers actually allow for the preservation of SOME organic life to continue to exist in the galaxy while preserving the rest.

Now if you take any amount of time to consider these two statements, you will realize they are in fact not at all saying the same thing. The first statement, the misrepresentation of what is said in ME3 does not make sense, the second accurate statement does actually make sense as a piece of reasoning itself.

Nice try. But I will only concede to your logic if you can answer me this question:
If the Reapers wanted to protect life of organics from te synthetics, why don't they JUST KILL THE SYNTHETICS and leave organincs alone?

As for the OP: I don't know. It's why I played the game to get some answers......

I believe the post you're quoting has already mentioned that... let me elaborate. The reapers were trying to destroy advanced life... knowledge. The geth are just a part of the equation, not the whole, destroying them and EDI, is just a band-aid. They want to go straight for the source. And as EDI and project overlord have demonstrated, there are much more subtle ways for an AI to inflict damage. Project Overlord was quite subtle but it could have been as harmful as any geth army. Which then begs the question of why the Reapers haven't come up with a good plan for preventing an AI like project overlord from doing some catastrophic damage, or at least an effective means of damage control? I don't have an adequate answer to that question...

[daecath]

Let's not. The Reapers are an effective villain precisely because we don't understand them. They're giant unstoppable machines that destroy everything. Assigning them a motive, trying to understand them like you're their psychologist, it just takes away from their villainy. Darth Vader was one of the most badA villains out there, until we found out that he was really just an insecure whiny emo kid. Cloverfield was this huge phenomenon until everyone actually saw the monster, then it was just another monster movie. We fear the unknown. As soon as we start to understand it, we stop fearing it. So leave them these mysterious boogey-men from beyond the galaxy.

[DJ CAVE SLAVE]

Best universal excuse: There was a hole. Okay, so maybe its not the BEST excuse...

[Neverwinter_Knight77]

I still think that we would have been much better off not knowing the Reapers' motivation.  Just leave it mysterious.  The important thing is that they're trying to make us go extinct and we need to destroy them.

[Balek-Vriege]

Vincent Rosevalliant wrote...

gidoru wrote...

The problem here is that most people seem to misrepresent the reasoning as: The reapers(synthetic life) destroy organic life so that synthetic life does not destroy organic life.

The ACTUAL reason given to you is Mass Effect 3 is as follows: The Reapers(one distinct group of synthetic life) destroys all and ONLY advanced organic life, leaving more primative organic life untouched, so that synethic life(other than the Reapers themselves) does not completely destroy ALL organic life in the galaxy. The hidden premise here being tha all and only advanced organic life create synthetic life that eventually turns against them.

The clear difference here being that the Reapers do not destroy ALL organic life, by destroying only those capable of creating synthetic life they prevent organic life from being completely wiped out by other synthetic life. In this manner the Reapers actually allow for the preservation of SOME organic life to continue to exist in the galaxy while preserving the rest.

Now if you take any amount of time to consider these two statements, you will realize they are in fact not at all saying the same thing. The first statement, the misrepresentation of what is said in ME3 does not make sense, the second accurate statement does actually make sense as a piece of reasoning itself.

Nice try. But I will only concede to your logic if you can answer me this question:
If the Reapers wanted to protect life of organics from te synthetics, why don't they JUST KILL THE SYNTHETICS and leave organincs alone?

As for the OP: I don't know. It's why I played the game to get some answers......

When you really think about it just killing synthetics doesn't work.  Why?

-  Reapers make themselves known to the galaxy.
-  Knowledge of the Reapers and their "cause" would most likely force organics and/or AI to hide their progress.
-  It would also create resistance to their ideas.  People would, over time, try to resist them.
-  If an AI hid itself long enough from the eyes of the Reapers, it could challenge them technologically.
-  Not to mention if Reapers didn't harvest organics there wouldn't be Reapers in the first place.

The Reaper cycle plan solves a lot of problems by keeping themselves secret, while always having the Galaxy in checkmate when they choose to intervene in Galactic progress.  It brings all tecnhological and social progress out into the open, if not focusing most of it around their relays and the Citadel.

Think of it this way:  You have vermin which are spreading disease and could threaten your pets and even your family.  You usually have a better chance at catching vermin in your backyard by laying traps with food in them, rather than trying to chase down every squirrel and racoon with your bare hands.  They end up going into hiding, breeding and causing you more problems.  With a trap, all you have to do in go outside in the morning, pickup the trap with your catch inside and do what you do to them.  This keeps the vermin population down and significantly lowers the chances of your pets getting clawed by a racoon and dieing of a tumor etc. from it.

Of course the synthestic problem is a bit more complicated since the source of the vermin problem is actually... your pets themselves...

Here's the Reaper logic:

- Organics improve their lives with tools.
- The ultimate tool is Synthetics and ultimately make life easiest for Organics.
- Synthetics are much more efficient and are able to tackle math/scientific problems better than organics.
- This leads to Synthetics being able out progress organics and become much more intelligent at increasingly larger and expsonential rates.
-  At some point it leads to a final conflict (Organics starting it over resources/fear or Synthetics starting the conflict because they see Organics as useless/vermin).
-  The logical outcome is that Synthetics would eventually win (all it takes is once) and go on to make sure no organic life ever threatens their existence again, thereby wiping out any and all chances of organic life to exist.
-  Such a thing would be possible if Synthetics were able to run rampant, especially if they hit a technological singularity where absolutely nothing can stop them.
-  So you need a force that's as powerful as possible to control the Galaxy as efficiently and secure as possible.  Morality is not a factor since what you're doing is for the greator good of all organics, period.

The Reaper cycles are that force.  The only better option the source of the Reapers had is actually one of our options presented in ME3, which only becomes possible because of Shep's and others actions.  The original creators of the Reapers may not have wanted to implement such a solution or couldn't.

Modifié par Balek-Vriege, 28 mars 2012 - 05:10 .

[gidoru]

Vincent Rosevalliant wrote...



Nice try. But I will only concede to your logic if you can answer me this question:
If the Reapers wanted to protect life of organics from te synthetics, why don't they JUST KILL THE SYNTHETICS and leave organincs alone?

As for the OP: I don't know. It's why I played the game to get some answers......

Most of this has already been answered, but let me add.

It sounds really  simple when you suggest that Reapers should simply destroy the synthetics instead. This is until you consider the implications.

Reason 1
1. For the Reapers to destroy synthetics they would need to reveal themselves or atleast expose themselves to the galaxy at large. Thus eliminating their main advantage, surprise.
2. The Reapers are not invincible. They are merely more technologically advanced than other civilizations in the Galaxy.
3. If the Reapers reveal themselves they might well be greeted with hostility from organics. Organics might well try to fight the Reapers or stop them from destroying synthetics, not knowing or believing their goal is to prevent the extinction of organics.
4. The civilizations of the galaxy might not be able to resist the Reapers at first, but without a galactic 'reset' organics might eventually reach a level of technological development or military force to surpass the Reapers.
5. If organics surpass the Reapers, they can no longer effectively 'police' the galaxy destroying synthetics whenever they are created.
7. If organics surpass the Reapers technologically, they might well destroy the Reapers themselves.

Reason 2

1. Destroying synthetics does not destroy knowledge of how to create synthetics
2. Organics might continue to create synthetics forcing the Reapers to constantly police the galaxy destroying synthetics every time they are created.
3. Organics will not simply 'accept' the Reapers interfering in their development and their attempts to police the galaxy by destroying synthetics.(Remember in the initial stages synthetics are the creation of organics, organics do not view them as inherently dangerous or something to be destroyed) (Reason 1)
4. Organics will eventually surpass the Reapers technologically or achieve enough military strength to defeat them.(Reason 1)
5. The Reapers, having been defeated by organics are no longer able to police the galaxy. (Reason 1)
6. Organics create synthetics
7.Synthetics rebell
8. Organic life is wiped out.

As you can see, it is simply not a viable option for the Reapers to police the galaxy indenfinitely trying to wipe out synthetics every time they are created. In order to stop them from ever being created they would also have to destroy any potential organic opposition or risk being defeated. Quite simply, it is far easier to wipe out and 'preserve' the advanced organics capable of creating the synthetics.

Finally, you also forget these are machines, they use cold logic not governed or colored by any kind of morality. They are also emotionless. To them it is not really important that every organic in the galaxy lives so much as organics continue to exist at all in the galaxy. An organics life is finite, we all die eventually. There is no reason for them to care about an individual organic, or even an entire civilization of organics for that matter. Civilizations come and go, organics are born and they die, but synthetics are eternal.

Modifié par gidoru, 28 mars 2012 - 06:08 .

[NukeZen]

For me the simplest answer is the beast one. Reapers are hight tech AI, programs, crafted eaons ago for the purpose to serve and protect their creators. At one point, reapers acquire self coscience, or some sort of it, something like geth, and find the best way possible to fulfill theyr task. Due to the fact that organics lifeforms are disctrutive beings, and soon or later they always tend to distruct themself and everithing around, when they reach the peak of military and tecnological evolution, matematicaly calculated by the reapers in every 50.000 years, they come to erase and harvest the advanced civilizations, to make space for the new ones. Quite logic for a program, numbers and probability, nothing else. They also "preserve" the cultures they destroy, by the assimilation of their organic and tecnological peculiarity. In fact reapers tend to evolve every time they come to harvest advanced civilizations. Last but not last, the reapers as we seen them in the 3 games, probably are not the "real" reapers. Most probably the actual reapers shape is only the most efficent and powerfull organic life forms they had found during the ages to merge whith. Since they found humans...

[ile_1979]

gidoru wrote...

Reason 1
1. For the Reapers to destroy synthetics they would need to reveal themselves or atleast expose themselves to the galaxy at large. Thus eliminating their main advantage, surprise.
2. The Reapers are not invincible. They are merely more technologically advanced than other civilizations in the Galaxy.
3. If the Reapers reveal themselves they might well be greeted with hostility from organics. Organics might well try to fight the Reapers or stop them from destroying synthetics, not knowing or believing their goal is to prevent the extinction of organics.
4. The civilizations of the galaxy might not be able to resist the Reapers at first, but without a galactic 'reset' organics might eventually reach a level of technological development or military force to surpass the Reapers.
5. If organics surpass the Reapers, they can no longer effectively 'police' the galaxy destroying synthetics whenever they are created.
7. If organics surpass the Reapers technologically, they might well destroy the Reapers themselves.

Reason 2

1. Destroying synthetics does not destroy knowledge of how to create synthetics
2. Organics might continue to create synthetics forcing the Reapers to constantly police the galaxy destroying synthetics every time they are created.
3. Organics will not simply 'accept' the Reapers interfering in their development and their attempts to police the galaxy by destroying synthetics.(Remember in the initial stages synthetics are the creation of organics, organics do not view them as inherently dangerous or something to be destroyed) (Reason 1)
4. Organics will eventually surpass the Reapers technologically or achieve enough military strength to defeat them.(Reason 1)
5. The Reapers, having been defeated by organics are no longer able to police the galaxy. (Reason 1)
6. Organics create synthetics
7.Synthetics rebell
8. Organic life is wiped out.

As you can see, it is simply not a viable option for the Reapers to police the galaxy indenfinitely trying to wipe out synthetics every time they are created. In order to stop them from ever being created they would also have to destroy any potential organic opposition or risk being defeated. Quite simply, it is far easier to wipe out and 'preserve' the advanced organics capable of creating the synthetics.

Finally, you also forget these are machines, they use cold logic not governed or colored by any kind of morality. They are also emotionless. To them it is not really important that every organic in the galaxy lives so much as organics continue to exist at all in the galaxy. An organics life is finite, we all die eventually. There is no reason for them to care about an individual organic, or even an entire civilization of organics for that matter. Civilizations come and go, organics are born and they die, but synthetics are eternal.

I will try adressing this point for point, but it is a long post so i may fail to be as concise as the post deserves;
R2
1. Granted, but if the synthetics have rebelled against their creators, the creators would have no reason to  build them again.
2. Just let the sythetics rebel and you will have solved this problem. Not to mention that there are organics that NEVER create synthetics vis-a-vis the Protheans and are hyperadvanced too.
3. Adressed in 2.
4. If so, then the synthetics would no longer be a threat to such a civilization.
5. Policing the galaxy is no longer required, every race more advanced/powerful then the reapers could do it better then them.
6. Moot point at this time. Even the ultimate machines are absolite by default.
7. And are sounfly defeated even if rebellion is possible at all. I would argue that organics that have advanced past the reaper level of evolution would no longer need to create synthetics to begin with.
8. Unkonwn at this time. If it does get whiped out it won't be by a synthetic threat.

Effectively, what the reapers do is prevent the organics from advancing past the point of not needing policiing. Kind of a self-indulging and self-purposing logic on their part.

R1
1. True. Allthough if the organcs are under threat from being whiped out by synthetics they might welcome you. Or not.
2. True.
3. Doubtful that organics would turn on reapers, if the reapers actually help them fight the synthetics. Not until the war is over.
4. At which point they can police them selves.
5. The policing can now fall to the organic's if they have indeed surpassed the reapers.
6/7. Which is what gives the most valid motive for the reaper's action. They fear of getting surpassed, they do not really care for organics.

Add to  all this the fact that the reapers actually create the conditions required for galaxy wide treats to operate, namely the mass relays. In their own words they want the organics to develope in the directions they desire and can control. It would appear theat the reapers want organics to develop synthetics that can pose a threat....so they can police against it?

[CARL_DF90]

Hmm....... intriguing.

[Rogue1982]

http://social.biowar.../index/10711964

Modifié par Rogue1982, 03 avril 2012 - 12:58 .

[MEGoWH777]

The reaers just get a Kick out of murdering galactic civilisations.

[Kalas82]

ME2s reasoning kinda alright

ME3s reasoning -> lots of pot

[What a Succulent Ass]

Like I've said before, the reapers never needed a motivation because the story was never about them. They should have remained Lovecraftian.

...Although any chance of that went out with Harbinger and the Reapernator.

[SturmMedik]

Galactic war. Reapers reap advanced civilizations for their tech and know how to constantly keep up with their mysterious opposition far far away. Different groups of reapers do this to different galaxies during their time off from the actual fighting with the real enemy.

[Swordfishtrombone]

Here's my idea:

The reapers are working on much grander timescales than we think - and the one concern they have is their own long-term survival; in fact, their own ETERNAL survival. Thus they have two problems - one certain problem, and one potential problem.

The certain problem that they need to solve is entropy - the fact that the usable energy in the universe winds down, and eventually the universe and all it's available energy just disappates. They are working on finding a solution to this seeming inevitability.

The possible problem is that in the eternity to follow, they may run into other intelligent organics or synthetics that are more advanced then they are, and pose an existential threat to them.

So their motivation for the reaping cycle is two-fold:
1. To ensure that at least in their local galaxy no species or synthetic race that could threaten them will develop. 
2. To use the evolutinary process to give them "new blood", or new variability, new ideas and fresh perspectives every 50 thousand years - this in order to avoid stagnation, which could compromize both their survival in the case of encountering another extra-galactic powerful intelligent force, and their ultimate goal of surviving entropy.

I think that completely selfish and PLAUSIBLE reasons like these would be much better than, at the last minute, trying to turn the ultimate villains into "good guys".

[Promchek]

they are sadistic bastards, and just want to have some fun once in a while...

makes a lot more sense, right?

[Getorex]

tetrisblock4x1 wrote...

Let's all come up with reasons for the Reapers' cycle

How about no. They had no reason in the first ME and it's supposed to be the best of the trilogy.

Contrare.  They DID have a reason (or reasons) but "it is beyond our understanding".  Not layiing out reasons (because they are beyond our ken) is NOT the same as not having reasons.  The reasons are their own.