318 réponses à ce sujet

[Lord Stark]

Actually the Reapers have been around for at least a billion years.
http://masseffect.wi...eviathan_of_Dis
This guy is speculated to be Sovereign.

[Subject9x]

lyleoffmyspace wrote...

Does everyone forget we take out a Reaper with a Cain on Earth?

That's a handheld weapon. And it can take out a Reaper.

They're not so overpowered. Just mount Cain cannons on Fighters and send them flying through Reapers kinetic barriers at slow speeds and fire the Cain. 1 dead Reaper.

shhhhhhhh space magic!

not only that but it appeared in that scene, that the cain fires self-guided munitions, very handy.

Modifié par Subject9x, 26 mars 2012 - 08:13 .

[ajm317]

lyleoffmyspace wrote...

Does everyone forget we take out a Reaper with a Cain on Earth?

That's a handheld weapon. And it can take out a Reaper.

They're not so overpowered. Just mount Cain cannons on Fighters and send them flying through Reapers kinetic barriers at slow speeds and fire the Cain. 1 dead Reaper.

That was just an AA cannon, not a Reaper.

[Subject9x]

right but who's to say that maybe massed Cain-fire can bring down a Reaper Destroyer?

[hammerfan]

The thing that led me to believe we'd defeat them conventionally against all odds was Javik's farewell speech when he explained how we're different from the Protheans. I took that as foreshadowing that strength through the unification of the diverse cultures would win the day. Boy was I ever wrong...

[II JazB x]

Why didn't the salarians and quarians develop a computer virus against the Reapers?

[paxbanana3915]

OP: Well said. I've been frustrated more than once with authors breaking the 'show, don't tell rule', and I appreciate that you've applied it to ME3. It really helps me have a more constructive look at why the ending clashed so badly just from a story stand-point. Spot on post.

[Subject9x]

cause then they'd have to program a level where you board harbinger in digital format like the Legion server mission...oh wait that would be awesome. You find out who exactly harby is, its motivations etc...then you destroy it with modified reaper code that you collected on that side quest...

[Applepie_Svk]

Fact is from what we know none of races before has so much knowlenge about Reapers as race of this cycle, and not just that we have succesfully delayed them with help of Protheans from Ilos which give us time tu study their technology.
ME cores, guns, indoctrination etc ...
When we fought with the Collectors we again collect many new informations about their technology witch could improved once again our onw effort.

The fact is every cycle before end up sepparate in each system waiting for their doomsday, even strong one falls under the pressure of Reaper´s army. Locking up every system cause chaos, anarchy, supply collapse, lost of deffense but in our cycle we delayed Reapers, we fought with them and their minions and gain enought knowlenge and power to fight with them.
You could gather every race under one fleet and with all these upgrades you should have a chance make them pay atleast for few last cycles with heavy loses...

[RVallant]

Sepharih wrote...

Brownfinger wrote...

shinobi602 wrote...

Well, all you said is true and all, but I believe they mean the entire Reaper fleet as a whole. The examples you cited show Reapers being defeated, but the Reapers that were destroyed were on their own. Sovereign itself took a large number of ships to be defeated.

Same with the Reaper on Rannoch. All the Reapers at once in a giant space battle would be a different ballgame I think.

After reading the first post, I came in to say exactly this. But, it's been fairly well covered.
/thread

Well evidently you didn't read far enough, because you missed this:


"Also, this isn't about "proving" whether or not the fleet could have defeated the reapers conventionally.  The point is thatfrom a storytelling standpoint, the game sends mixed messages."

and this:

"I know that all the examples I have cited can be explained away by lore such as "this was a smaller reaper" or "this one took the combined might of the whole fleet".  But citing such examples misses my entire point about show versus tell.

If you want to tell a story that shows the player that the reapers cannot be defeated conventionally then you should not have them defeat the reapers conventionally at almost every story beat. "

Bolded part is a non-sequitor.

Every time a reaper is shown to be defeated the player has an advantage of numbers.

Sovereign was 1 Reaper (Entire Alliance Fifth Fleet concentrated fire)
Rannoch was 1 Reaper (Entire Migrant fleet concentrated fire on a weak spot)
Tuchanka was 1 Reaper (Biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig effing monster)
The Derelict Reaper (Taken out by a gun that fired one shot and almost tore a planet in half...)

You can't apply what happens in an 100 vs 1 situation for a fleet battle of 100 vs 100, or a galaxy battle of 100 vs 1million.

If you go through the codex though and go by what the game tells you and shows you;

1) Reapers can be defeated by conventional means

Palaven is a prime example of this, Turian tactics completely bamboozled them because they couldn't utilise their turning circle tricks without shooting their own shields to crap.

2) Reapers can be defeated by unconventional means

Thessia or the Asari campaign shows they were doing well until the Reapers forced them into 'traditional' planet warfare, something the Asari aren't good at. Et tu, this was the problem for the Turians too. Humans on the other hand actually amassed a conventional fleet (against their own battle doctrine funny enough) and were decimated.

BUT... regardless, the Turians and Asari and Alliance end up fleeing.

Flash forward to Earth's mission...

The amount of Reapers inclusive of dreadnoughts there are quite sizable. This is a force that was happy to knock out the Alliance's full strength at this moment.

Now, Palevan has an invasion force that is likely to be equal to the Earth force, Turians fleet was also beaten back.

Thessia is likewise. Various other homeworlds are being harvested, in fact various other colonies are being harvested. We don't have raw numbers sadly, but we do know that by the time we launch the Earth assault with what is the 'biggest' combined arms forces in the Galaxy at that point, there is Reaper prescence in EVERY single system linked by a mass relay.

They won't be sending "just one Reaper" to each of these systems, Rannoch and Tuchanka were unique in that a) Rannoch had a geth fleet for defence and Tuchanka had NO fleet defences outside of the Council DMZ token forces.

Put simply, even assuming (and even if we were told) that the Reapers sent forces of equivilant to the Earth invasion forces, then even if the Combined Fleets beat the Reapers at Earth there was no possible way for them to refill their numbers at minimum two times over (counting Palaven and Thessia).

Even if we assume that every Reaper fleet (outside of the trio of homeworlds) were minor fleets, I just cannot see the combined forces of the entire galaxy holding out. Even with unconventional tactics, it's just not going to happen. The Protheans with their more advanced technology, more wider galaxy faring empire and with a war-economy couldn't do it, at best they could slow them down. I think this cycle, the advantage of the races in versatility and uniqueness was also the thing that bit them in the ass. They banded together to unite and made political concessions like the Treaty of Farixan and so on which limited their weapons Devs and ship building capabilities.

So yeah, the Earth scene could have gone our way if we were REALLY lucky but in the end they never had a hope against the entire might of the rest of the galaxy imho.

[Faerlyte]

Wouldn't it be possible to, you know, destroy a few more relays thereby buying yourself some time from the Reaper attack? They wanted there to be tough decisions. I think the toughest decisions would be leaving planets behind by blowing up the Mass Relays and killing everybody, including the Reapers. Wiping out Thessia, Palaven and Earth would put a dent in the Reaper's forces. Then beating them the conventional way all of a sudden isn't so much of a stretch.

And if you went a step further, couldn't they conceivably buy themselves a few years if they were to isolate themselves in one of the systems with the last of the resistance?

One thing that bothers me about the game is the pacing seems off. They tell you that it took centuries for the Reapers to defeat the Protheans...so...given that the Protheans might have been more advanced than the current peeps inhabiting the galaxy, I think it would be fair to say that it would still take at least 50 years for the Reapers to finish off everybody, so why does it feel like it's going to take them months, if not weeks, to conquer this generation?

This does not feel like a situation where they're going to be fighting for years and years. Not by a long shot. I find that incredibly unlikely.

I wouldn't have minded a game that was based a year or two after the events of ME2 and focused on gathering different pockets of resistance throughout the galaxy. The Normandy is a perfect ship for it too because of its stealth capabilities - hey, they might even build MORE of them, go figure. I would think everyone can agree that they need to pull out all the stops.

Grant it, they would've had to toss the "difficult" decisions in trying to make the Krogans and everybody get along, and the Geth to get along with Quarians, but both concepts are ridiculous within the context of what's going on anyway. Anything with a survival instinct is going to know that their entire existence is threatened and they're going to fight tooth and nail to stop it. Everything has that trigger to fight like a creature possessed when cornered, and everybody in this galaxy knows their cornered. Once planets started being attacked and people were dying by the millions, there would be no question of joining forces with Geth and Krogan alike. Nobody's worried about what will happen afterword because they know there's not going to be one if they don't use every able ally they can find.

I don't agree that under the circumstances people would be this stupid and they are being very stupid. Like I said, survival instinct will kick in. You can only deny so much. Once it's on the doorstep everybody is going to turn their head and attack the biggest threat to their existence, aka the Reapers.

That's just my feeling though. I did not agree with the story telling throughout ME3 for this reason.

Modifié par Faerlyte, 26 mars 2012 - 08:42 .

[Slash1667]

Subject9x wrote...

I don't think the rannoch reaper fight is conclusive. We don't know how many ships it takes to kill 1 reaper because all the quarian ships are there it's not like Shepard says: ok I'll use half of the fleet to kill this thing.

if the entire fleet is there , s/he's gonna use it.

Another thing to consider is the fact that the entire Quarian fleet wasn't there. The ARMED civilian ships were on the other side of the sun. Of the ships that were there they had just finished a battle with the Geth so how many of those ships could still contribute?

[Sepharih]

RVallant wrote...
Bolded part is a non-sequitor.

Every time a reaper is shown to be defeated the player has an advantage of numbers.

Sovereign was 1 Reaper (Entire Alliance Fifth Fleet concentrated fire)
Rannoch was 1 Reaper (Entire Migrant fleet concentrated fire on a weak spot)
Tuchanka was 1 Reaper (Biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig effing monster)
The Derelict Reaper (Taken out by a gun that fired one shot and almost tore a planet in half...)

You can't apply what happens in an 100 vs 1 situation for a fleet battle of 100 vs 100, or a galaxy battle of 100 vs 1million.

If you go through the codex though and go by what the game tells you and shows you;

1) Reapers can be defeated by conventional means

Palaven is a prime example of this, Turian tactics completely bamboozled them because they couldn't utilise their turning circle tricks without shooting their own shields to crap.

2) Reapers can be defeated by unconventional means

Thessia or the Asari campaign shows they were doing well until the Reapers forced them into 'traditional' planet warfare, something the Asari aren't good at. Et tu, this was the problem for the Turians too. Humans on the other hand actually amassed a conventional fleet (against their own battle doctrine funny enough) and were decimated.

BUT... regardless, the Turians and Asari and Alliance end up fleeing.

Flash forward to Earth's mission...

The amount of Reapers inclusive of dreadnoughts there are quite sizable. This is a force that was happy to knock out the Alliance's full strength at this moment.

Now, Palevan has an invasion force that is likely to be equal to the Earth force, Turians fleet was also beaten back.

Thessia is likewise. Various other homeworlds are being harvested, in fact various other colonies are being harvested. We don't have raw numbers sadly, but we do know that by the time we launch the Earth assault with what is the 'biggest' combined arms forces in the Galaxy at that point, there is Reaper prescence in EVERY single system linked by a mass relay.

They won't be sending "just one Reaper" to each of these systems, Rannoch and Tuchanka were unique in that a) Rannoch had a geth fleet for defence and Tuchanka had NO fleet defences outside of the Council DMZ token forces.

Put simply, even assuming (and even if we were told) that the Reapers sent forces of equivilant to the Earth invasion forces, then even if the Combined Fleets beat the Reapers at Earth there was no possible way for them to refill their numbers at minimum two times over (counting Palaven and Thessia).

Even if we assume that every Reaper fleet (outside of the trio of homeworlds) were minor fleets, I just cannot see the combined forces of the entire galaxy holding out. Even with unconventional tactics, it's just not going to happen. The Protheans with their more advanced technology, more wider galaxy faring empire and with a war-economy couldn't do it, at best they could slow them down. I think this cycle, the advantage of the races in versatility and uniqueness was also the thing that bit them in the ass. They banded together to unite and made political concessions like the Treaty of Farixan and so on which limited their weapons Devs and ship building capabilities.

So yeah, the Earth scene could have gone our way if we were REALLY lucky but in the end they never had a hope against the entire might of the rest of the galaxy imho.

It is not a non sequitor.

If the story was ultimately going to completely hinge on a plot device like the crucible and there was no other path to victory then the plot should have followed through and left each mission with a feeling of hopelessness and even failure rather than heroic triumph against all odds at nearly every plot point I can remember outside of Thessia (where it wasn't even really the Reapers who got the better of you).

It's not unlike if you flipped the endings to Star Wars and the Empire Strikes back.  They both work perfectly fine and fit the stories they follow....but they'd both feel out of tone flipped.

[Lars Honeytoast]

While I agree that defeating the Reapers conventionally would probably have been the coolest way to kill them (Shepard aiming the Citadel as a cannon right through Harbinger? Yes please), it definitely isn't feasible. I don't remember the exact quote, but when you are talking to either Admiral Hackett or Andersen (forget which) when arriving on Earth, you asking about Hammer, which I understand to be the forces that were supposed to accompany you through Reaper lines. Only about half of them even make it through. I mean, if half of the galaxy's dedicated forces for the most important mission in any of the Mass Effect games can even get around the Reapers, what makes you think that we could possibly fight them?


Then again, I've always been one to contradict myself, so here's a few ways that the Reapers could actually be destroyed.

1. The huge gun(s) that you take back from Cerberus on Tuchanka. I was made to believe that these guns were outrageously powerful, as the Krogan only ever focused their technological development into weapons. I could imagine one of those bad boys taking down a Reaper coming into orbit, at least a Destroyer.

2. As has been mentioned before, maybe blowing up a relay could do it. Although, I'm relatively sure the Reapers were within the blast radius when the Alpha Relay blew up, so maybe not.

3. Honestly, what I always hoped for was actually infiltrating some of the Reapers. Saren got into Sovereign somehow, which implies there has to be some sort of door on Dreadnaughts right? That's an inherent structural weakness (See: Windows). Imagine busting into Harbinger, and fighting your way through whatever species that were assimilated into him. (Probably one of the first cycles.) Battle all the way to the galactic core, and blow that son of a **** to hell. That's the most satisfying thing I can think of, maybe with Javik and Garrus busting some heads for good measure. Or doing that Illusive Man and busting his AI core and just piloting the bad boy yourself, if that's possible.

[Sangheili_1337]

lyleoffmyspace wrote...

Does everyone forget we take out a Reaper with a Cain on Earth?

That's a handheld weapon. And it can take out a Reaper.

They're not so overpowered. Just mount Cain cannons on Fighters and send them flying through Reapers kinetic barriers at slow speeds and fire the Cain. 1 dead Reaper.

A AA gun is not a Reaper. What you just typed have me rolling my eyes.

[lothvamp]

I was always under the impression that we would be beating the reapers by conventional means - through the gathering and cooperation of all the forces the galaxy had to offer.  Instead, in the very first mission (practically the tutorial mission) we are handed blueprints for a deus ex machina on a silver platter.  We don't even have to work to decode the info or anything   So, our gathering of allies is reduced to -what did Hackett call it?- insurance of the safe delivery of this super-weapon? (That just happened to be on Mars?  Not to mention the relic on Thessia that "might" help, that just happened to have a VI with all the answers -after reclaiming it from the incomprehensibly invincible Kai Leng. (I'm pretty sure that if Thane could chase him off on his deathbed, my team wouldn't have trouble with him.  Even with a gunship -which I've taken out before, on foot.))

hammerfan wrote...

The thing that led me to believe we'd defeat them conventionally against all odds was Javik's farewell speech when he explained how we're different from the Protheans. I took that as foreshadowing that strength through the unification of the diverse cultures would win the day. Boy was I ever wrong...

He also stated before that his cycle didn't work together and that might be our cycle's biggest advantage.

[hammerfan]

lothvamp wrote...

I was always under the impression that we would be beating the reapers by conventional means - through the gathering and cooperation of all the forces the galaxy had to offer.  Instead, in the very first mission (practically the tutorial mission) we are handed blueprints for a deus ex machina on a silver platter.  We don't even have to work to decode the info or anything   So, our gathering of allies is reduced to -what did Hackett call it?- insurance of the safe delivery of this super-weapon? (That just happened to be on Mars?  Not to mention the relic on Thessia that "might" help, that just happened to have a VI with all the answers -after reclaiming it from the incomprehensibly invincible Kai Leng. (I'm pretty sure that if Thane could chase him off on his deathbed, my team wouldn't have trouble with him.  Even with a gunship -which I've taken out before, on foot.))

hammerfan wrote...

The thing that led me to believe we'd defeat them conventionally against all odds was Javik's farewell speech when he explained how we're different from the Protheans. I took that as foreshadowing that strength through the unification of the diverse cultures would win the day. Boy was I ever wrong...

He also stated before that his cycle didn't work together and that might be our cycle's biggest advantage.

That earlier speech may be the one I'm thinking of, but yeah that's exactly what I was driving at.

Modifié par hammerfan, 26 mars 2012 - 09:31 .

[Duckin50s]

i would've enjoyed knocking harbinger to the ground with some missiles and then stabbing him in his big eye with an omni-blade, believable probably not...better than the real endings, i think so

[GnusmasTHX]

And the Reapers could have charged the a Citadel, turned off all the Relays and killed us.

Pretty much have to remember than the Reapers outnumber us by a ****ton at Earth, and they have more spread out over the galaxy at the final battle.

They outgun and outmaneuver us.

And those two Reapers we killed in a totally contrived way through their eyeholes? Well they don't actually have to open those to kill us.

Modifié par GnusmasTHX, 26 mars 2012 - 09:48 .

[Geneaux486]

Yeah, even though they probably had to burn resources flying to the Milky Way under their own power, and spread out their forces to multiple systems, they're still massive power houses with advanced technology and are great in number. The Turian military at its best got its ass kicked in a frontal assault.  Galactic Civilization's saving grace was the fact that the Reapers choose to harvest rather than completely destroy, so they become methodical about how they attack a planet directly.  That goes out the window if you attack them directly as a fleet though, then they stop caring about harvesting you.  Defeating the Reapers conventionally would absolutely not work from a story perspective. Especially considering the story states over and over again that the Reapers can't be defeated conventionally, and proves it in all three games through demonstration of their immense strength.

Modifié par Geneaux486, 26 mars 2012 - 09:56 .

[Lordalif]

Reaper ships are way too tough, I love how you get your hopes up before the earth battle just to be hit by reality and reminding us how tough the soverign ships really are. I would like a clever way to destroy the reapers, one that heavily included shepard.

P.S. the current ending isn't clever

[RiouHotaru]

 OP, your examples are flawed for a few reasons:

A) Sovereign was only defeated in a timely manner because he "assumed control" of Saren's corpse.  When that died, Sovereign died with it.  So that's NOT a conventional example.

The dead Reaper in ME2 was said to be destroyed by a Mass Effect cannon so strong is tore a hunk out of an ENTIRE planet.  If that's "conventional" then I think you have an odd definition of what "conventional" means.

C) The Human Reaper was stated very explicitly by EDI to be in it's earliest stages of development.  EARLIEST.  And we know canonically that the Larva would've been the core of a reaper, with the ship as it's shell.  So it's not even what one would call a standard Reaper.

D) The mother of all Thresher Maws is considered "conventional"?  Really?

E) That was because they were aiming for one specific point on the Reaper, and that was a Destroyer-class Reaper as well.  Remember how much damage the Sovereign-class did to the Fleet in ME1?

F) Once again, Destroyer class, significantly smaller and far less armed.

[Geneaux486]

All excellent points, RiouHotaru.

[RiouHotaru]

GnusmasTHX wrote...

And the Reapers could have charged the a Citadel, turned off all the Relays and killed us.

Pretty much have to remember than the Reapers outnumber us by a ****ton at Earth, and they have more spread out over the galaxy at the final battle.

They outgun and outmaneuver us.

And those two Reapers we killed in a totally contrived way through their eyeholes? Well they don't actually have to open those to kill us.

Actually the exposed weakpoint is a firing chamber.  Remember what Shepard said?  When it's being "primed" it's a weakpoint that can be shot at.  The reaper HAS to open it's plates to fire at you.

[Geneaux486]

RiouHotaru wrote...

GnusmasTHX wrote...

And the Reapers could have charged the a Citadel, turned off all the Relays and killed us.

Pretty much have to remember than the Reapers outnumber us by a ****ton at Earth, and they have more spread out over the galaxy at the final battle.

They outgun and outmaneuver us.

And those two Reapers we killed in a totally contrived way through their eyeholes? Well they don't actually have to open those to kill us.

Actually the exposed weakpoint is a firing chamber.  Remember what Shepard said?  When it's being "primed" it's a weakpoint that can be shot at.  The reaper HAS to open it's plates to fire at you.

I think (and please correct me if I'm wrong) Gnusmas may have been referring to the fact that they could also just stomp on you or something.  I'm sure everyone remembers Soveriegn just plowing through one of those big ships at the Citadel.  "**** I got stuff to do, outta my way."

Modifié par Geneaux486, 26 mars 2012 - 10:02 .