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[Getorex]

AwesomeName wrote...

Getorex wrote...

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.

Having said that, Sovereign did say quite a lot of stuff that's reflected by both Harbinger and the Catalyst.

E.g.:


Reason no. 1: "We impose order onto chaos" = long term survival against cosmic entropy

Reason no. 2*: "We are the pinnacle of evolution... We are each a nation" = the homogenisation and preservation of adv. life in Reaper form (a Reaper's mind is made up of several organic minds).  This also reflects reason 1.

*In ME2, it was confirmed that Reapers are synthetic/organic hybrids... the organic part being the millions of organic minds that are uploaded to form the Reaper's mind ("We are each a nation").  So to anyone arguing about circular logic, it's worth noting the Reapers aren't really synthetic life as many often think they are; they're organic, but they have synthetic parts/machinery, etc. 

Way to read in WAY more than is actually provided.  No matter how much
you wave your hands the ending is crap and cannot be rescued.  Don't
try.  Waste of energy (and ATP).  <_<

[Kungfu Nando]

Why do synthetics always have to want to destroy us? Surely is more logical to assume that out of fear organics would attack first, similar to the geth, only attempting to wipe us out in self preservation? Which I thought was one of the major flaws of ME3s ending.The game sets up that synthetics at large want to be left alone, the geth for instance just wanted to become one people, instead of separated programs, probably happy to just observe the galaxy from a far.

The Reapers motives should be left a mystery, this is the good kind of speculation. It gets people talking about their games, creating fanfiction, replaying for more hints/clues. My friends and I all had different or slightly similar ideas. One being that the Reapers are flawed hybrid machines that were meant to ensure galactic diversity, perhaps as people say because their civilzation was so advance no other beings got a chance to evolve. However in true si-fi fashion they followed this too well and now constantly reap the galaxy of advance civilizations .

My take on the story (up until 3s ending)
Sovereign was originally supposed to reap the galaxy 1000 years earlier, as expressed by the rachni queen. The Reapers do not just invade a galaxy and risk great losses on their part, but the vanguard sets out to weaken the community at large, hence the rachni wars/krogan rebellions. Unfortunately for Sovereign, the protheans edited the Keeper signal, therefore postponing the harvest. This only slightly messes his plans as he then uses the geth, ironically the type of beings they are trying to "protect" us from to his advantage, later learning he needed an organic to find the conduit (Saren). However the constant delays in the reaping allows for the civilizations to recover, and develop stronger relations with each other than seen in previous cycles, united together despite their differences, something Javik confirms his kind did not think possible . Humanity joins the scene and thus Commander Shepard. Shepard not only once but twice foils the Reapers attempt at harvesting the galaxy, thus forcing the war. However with all these delays something unthinkable happens, synthetics and organics form a peace, ironically brought about because of the reapers. The Catalyst realizes it has not only contradicted itself but the reapers are the very reason for this peace. Then stupid abc choices based on the techno singularity blah blah, I choose destroy, hurrah i'm not dead..

Modifié par Kungfu Nando, 03 avril 2012 - 02:53 .

[Avissel]

 Actaully I had an idea for an ending, to try and tie together the Dark Energy mentions, with some of the other "big things" in the series, the Relays, The whole Harvesting thing, and Mass effect in general, it meshes a bit with that "dark energy" ending that was floating around but was scrapped.

The idea I had was that Dark Energy was a threat to the whole galaxy, if left unchecked it would eventaully destroy everything. The Relays were basically created as a measure to stop this from happening, the network acts as sort of "rope around the edges" holding everything together and keeping the Dark energy in check through the use of all the powerful ME fields.

The part where the Reapers come in is that the Relays were "powered" in a sense by organic biotics, the idea I had was that the system that controlled the dark energy was seperate from just the eezo core of the relay.

The Reapers were created by the civlization that created the Mass Relays to insure that the Relays stayed powered, while this has a bit of the whole "They aren't pure evil" thing of the current ending, I think it's better because it doesn't turn it into the utterly annoying "saving you from yourself" but fist more with Sovreigns "you exsist because we allow it" qoute and quite honestly haveing the Reapers be PURE EVIL wouldnt work anyway, because then why wouldn't they just kill everybody and have done with it?

Alot of this is based around Sovreigns dialouge, the whole "controlling your evolution" bit makes a bit more sense when you think that they wanted people to use and be dependent on the Relays, thus exposeing them to ezzo more and more, thus createing more biotics.

The endings I've not quite worked out, I had one that was basically like it is now. One option is to use the catalyst so send out the massive energy burst that destroies the relays, but it destroies them because it sends them into a sort of "over drive" mode and the resulting energy waves stabalize the dark energy in the Galaxy. It would have been stated that the "destruction" isn't like the alpha relay explosion, but you do still effectivly cut off section of the galaxy from one another. You sacrifice the current state of the galactic community in order to preserve it as a whole.

(I'm sure there are plenty of holes that could be poked in my story but I was just kinda spitballing an idea with myself while at work, so cut me some slack.)

[ile_1979]

i gave this some thought over the past week, and more and more i think, it makes less sense that the cause for reaping is harvesting of new ideas and tech. in their own words the reapers want the organics to develop along predictable lines and familiar tech. that does not sound like a hunt for creativity.

[Overule]

I always figured reproduction made the most sense. Reapers seem like a natural galactic apex predator.

[Blackmind1]

 You're completely missing the point of The Reapers. They aren't meant to make sense, at least not to us.

Go read some Lovecraft, prepare your mind for things you can't comprehend. You may get though this easier.

[pixelface]

the reapers are a metaphor for conflict and unsustainability, basically everything has a climax and then the cycle must repeat itself, that it why the reapers do not need a motivation or to be explained.

Modifié par pixelface, 03 avril 2012 - 10:38 .

[ile_1979]

AwesomeName wrote...

I love how people cling onto the parts of Sovereign's conversation where he talks about being beyond our understanding, but completely ignore the pieces of information he does actually give us. :/

True, for all we know he/she/it/they might have been too arrogant to explain the reasons to a simple organic.

[xX N7 Xx]

I like the idea of them being evil just for the sake of being evil. Or that they kill us thinking theyre doing us a favor. There's a word for it, I just cant think of it.. Like playing god.

[_symphony]

The reapers didn't need a reason, I liked then when they were unknownable.

[Ghost]

Ending DLC included in Dr. Pepper anyone?

[Quionic]

 Because LOLPLOT.

[Edrick1976]

Because they are troll's.....

[Foryou]

How is this not a spoiler

[Shelled]

how is this thread not considered spoilers?

[Faridle]

Reapers = Like being an child burning ants with an magnifying glass.

[Uszi]

1:  The reapers prevent total cultural and systemic dominance by a single technologically advanced civilization.

So this is not "We impose order on the chaos of organic evolution."  Rather, this is "We impose chaos on the order of organic evolution."

The difference is that the latter is actually hinted at in ME3, and it actually makes sense.  Reapers can't impose order by destroying things.  That's not what "order" is, unless you're Bashar al-Assad.  In contrast, by tearing the galaxy up every 50,000 years, the reapers essentially prevent the galaxy from moving towards single species dominance and ultimate nightmare autocracy and homogeny.

This is what the Protheans had:  Single species empire that basically enslaved all other species in the galaxy, and ruled them with an iron fist.  If the Reapers hadn't killed the Protheans, we would have found a very different, very hostile galactic civilization that would immediately try to enslave and conquer us.

The Reapers basically come in every 50,000 years, shuffle the deck, and then deal the cards back out to the organics that will become the next round of civilization. 

We benefitted by the destruction of the Protheans.  Arguably other races would benefit from our destruction.

2.  The Reapers are harvesting new Tech, information, etc.

The Reapers, rather than being melodramatic or complicated, are essentially thugs:  their philosophy is "take all the good stuff, smash all the junk."  They let organic civilizations develop along the paths they desire so they develop new tech that the Reapers will find useful.  They use the slaves for something, I guess they use the genetic material for something (sure, to breed, whatever ME2).  But mostly it's about preferring to take from others rather than make for themselves.

They time their invasion at the critical point, where organics have developed new or interesting things the Reapers want, but before they get advanced enough to actually pose a threat.  The longer the Reapers wait, the bigger the pay off, but the greater the danger.

3.  The reapers are cyborgs and need to harvest organics to further their organic evolution, bolster their numbers, etc.

This is the explanation from ME2.  While a lot of us hated it years ago, it's way better than the current explantions.

4.  The Reapers motives are never explained

It would be better to not have an answer, then to have a non sequitur.  Like the ending to ME3.

[WhiteKnyght]

I think The Terminator films are a good indication of why writers would make the prevention of synthetic life a good goal.

AI run on flawed logic. They're only as good as their programming and will do whatever it takes to follow their orders in the most obscure ways. Skynet took "eliminate all threats to Skynet" very literally and attacked all humans because they are a potential threat.

[daecath]

Replace "Jellyfish" with "Bug"

I actually saw someone else's post on this on Facebook that talked about how they might actually be the police of the galaxy. I kind of like the idea, it makes them a little deeper character.

The idea is that when a civilization becomes advanced enough to travel to other planets, they disrupt the natural order on that planet. It was like the Europeans coming to the new world. They take over and squash native cultures. On an intergalactic scale, that could (and in the case of the Protheans, did) lead to one species dominating, even enslaving every other species. And so the Reapers wipe out highly advanced species to allow other less developed species to advance, like pruning a tree. That would make this cycle different, perhaps even unique, because you have multiple species that are advanced which are, for the most part, able to co-exist with one another.

An interesting theory, but my take is they're just worried that one day someone bigger will come along and squish them like the giant bugs they are.

[Bernhardtbr]

Good points by Uzsi nad Nayr. Maybe as synthetics evolve they will eventually ALWAYS consider organics as threats.

[Bernhardtbr]

Good points by Uzsi nad Nayr. Maybe as synthetics evolve they will eventually ALWAYS consider organics as threats and therefore, the Reapers are right in the end.

Modifié par Bernhardtbr, 04 avril 2012 - 02:00 .