338 réponses à ce sujet

[Jamanticarius]

One thing, OP- a billion years of cycles means 20,000 cycles, not 2,000, hehe.

[daecath]

I totally agree. See ME1. You have the entire Alliance/Citadel fleet being absolutely decimated, and Sovereign wasn't taking so much as a scratch. Then, Sovereign transfers his consciousness, or at least a portion of it, to take control of Saren. We defeat him, and suddenly Sovereign is vulnerable.

There's no way that you can defeat the Reapers. Maybe if you throw everything you have at them you get lucky, but it'll by a Pyrrhic victory at best. Reapers gone, but most of civilization goes with them in the battle.

The only way I can see that you can defeat the Reapers is by doing what you did with Sovereign - attack them mentally. Make the Crucible an antenna that connects you to their minds, and attack them from there. Whether it's some kind of ID4 shutdown code, or whether it's a more metaphysical "psychic" battle between Shepard and the Reapers. Something like that. That would be the only thing I could see that would make sense.

I was actually playing around with this idea the other day, and wrote out an entire new ending, one that I think could work, building off the IT theory. I posted it if anyone's curious, though I hesitate to suggest it, since I'm scared of Bioware turning to "fan-fic" like this for ideas. But here you go. docs.google.com/document/pub

Modifié par daecath, 02 avril 2012 - 07:59 .

[ZLurps]

[quote]acrb101 wrote...

[quote]sergio71785 wrote...

It took two hits of the thannix cannon to destroy the Collector ship, which is cruiser sized. The "thannix cannon" of the reapers one-shots any of our ships, including dreadnaughts.

[/quote]

In the opening scenes, a Sovereign class Reaper is seen duking it out with a dreadnought over earth. It takes a few hits from the Reaper's main gun to destroy the dreadnought.

Exibit A:


In Mass Effect 1, Sovereign seems to destroy dreadnoughts with a single blow from his main weapon. I'd assume that upgrades in sheilds and armor allow the galaxies' dreadnoughts to withstand Reaper attacks.

[/quote]

That's not Reaper main cannon, it's using some of it's tentacle beam weapons. Similar to ones Sovereign used to one shot Alliance Cruisers.

Also, originally posted by Sergio.


"No dreadnaught has yet to survive a direct hit from the weapon."[/quote]

Modifié par ZLurps, 02 avril 2012 - 07:59 .

[IntoTheDarkness]

ZLurps wrote...

IntoTheDarkness wrote...

ZLurps wrote...

Wow...

Well, I would add following to your thoughts.

There might be cycles that fail, Prothean cycle is example of that, no Reaper dreadnought was made of them. Then, however Reapers find other uses for them. The Collector drones was one use for Protheans, but there's also Reaper destroyers and fighters that may as well be constructed from space faring races that aren't "ascended" to dreadnought form.

What comes to technology... Rachni wars was most likely Sovereign's doing and it's attempt to gain access to the Citadel that was not responding it's command to open the mass relay in the dark space. Rachni wars were about 2000 years before the event's of ME3. I think those 2000 years were important for current galactic races, not only because of technology, but because of political progress that created possibility for united fleet for example. Also, economics.

May get back into this later.

I say your argument of 2,000 years is quite logical, given that reapers' only way of returning is using mass relays.

However, in ME3 we know reapers can just fly in using FTL from the dark space. Why didn't they just come flying in 2000 years ago? If they are as smart as they claim to be(as as Legion tells Shepard), what inevitable circumstances forced to them wait 2,000 years while Sovereign kept failing? Shouldn't Soveregin have foreseen this given his superintellect?

Frankly, this goes to territory where there's no real answers, guy who created the Reapers and founded the lore left BioWare.

One theory was that Reapers started their voyage from dark space when they didn't get to hear from Sovereign, perhaps 1000 year ago.

Then why Sovereign was still trying to open the relay? Did entire Reaper fleet traveled or was some part of their forces left behind where counter part of Citadel is? Sure they weren't dragging portable giant mass relay with them, though since event's of ME3 maybe they did, but accidentally lost it because Reaper #2856, #984 and 1511 lost grip while towing and it slipped in the super nova.

It gets even more funny if you take the Collectors and Harbinger in account. Collectors had live communication link to Harby that we can assume was in dark space with rest of the Reaper fleet. How in the world Sovereign was not able to message Harby that things are bit awry here via Collectors 2000 years ago?

Oh wait, maybe Sovereign was jealous about the Collectors or something, why it didn't fly to dark space and get back with the fleet 1996 years ago?

Bottom line, some things in ME lore are done well, some are not.

lol at collector/harby argument. That was brilliant.

mayble Sovereign was an outdated reaper from the first cycle, like 10 billions years ago.

[Stygian1]

Gerudan wrote...

That's why the Crucible should weaken them, so they are defeatable and not just wipe them out or control them.

Also, this is what the crucible should have done... 

[zephyr2025]

So this is all based on assumptions?

They could have easily said that this cycle stands a chance because
1) The citadel wasn't taken over
2) Protheans bought us a lot of time
3) We salvaged Reaper tech from Sovereign/Collector base
4) Each cycle gets help from the last so we should stand a better chance than anyone else

Yeah I guess you can just assume other cycles had better but that's just that, an assumption. I can just assume that all other cycles were less advance than Protheans. Protheans came close and then helped our cycle immensely to seal the deal.

[Ishiken]

IntoTheDarkness wrote...

Liber320 wrote...

Reapers depended heavily on the element of surpirse and either an non-unified or extremely centralized galaxy.

In this cycle, we:

- Were warned and found out about them before the attack

- Stopped them from using the Citadel and shutting down the Mass Relays

- Managed to destroy one of them and find another derelict one, using their technology to create shielding and weapons almost if not equal to theirs

- Had the entire galaxy (more or less) working together to stop them


So while it may be a long shot and would most definately result in an unfathomable amount of casualties, it could definately be done.

that analysis only works if there had been 2 CYCLES in the past, ours and the protheans.

there had been 2000. come on, reapers must have calculated what organics capabilities are under ideal circumstatnces. all conditions you lists could have happended in the past cycles, and even if it did not, reapers should have known the possibility and consequently prepared for such set of evensts.

The better question is why the Reapers didn't move the Citadel into deep space somewhere so the Alliance forces can never reach it instead to being on top of the Sol system.

[IntoTheDarkness]

daecath wrote...

I totally agree. See ME1. You have the entire Alliance/Citadel fleet being absolutely decimated, and Sovereign wasn't taking so much as a scratch. Then, Sovereign transfers his consciousness, or at least a portion of it, to take control of Saren. We defeat him, and suddenly Sovereign is vulnerable.

There's no way that you can defeat the Reapers. Maybe if you throw everything you have at them you get lucky, but it'll by a Pyrrhic victory at best. Reapers gone, but most of civilization goes with them in the battle.

The only way I can see that you can defeat the Reapers is by doing what you did with Sovereign - attack them mentally. Make the Crucible an antenna that connects you to their minds, and attack them from there. Whether it's some kind of ID4 shutdown code, or whether it's a more metaphysical "psychic" battle between Shepard and the Reapers. Something like that. That would be the only thing I could see that would make sense.

I was actually playing around with this idea the other day, and wrote out an entire new ending, one that I think could work, building off the IT theory. I posted it if anyone's curious, though I hesitate to suggest it, since I'm scared of Bioware turning to "fan-fic" like this for ideas. But here you go. docs.google.com/document/pub

Good points. ME3 being RPG and all, it's not a bad idea to end the final fight with bunch of discussions and fights of will - this cycle is NOT special because there had been so many, like 20,000 in the past.(I miscalculated. Levithian is 10 billions years old I think. thus 20,000 not 2000). but regarding Shepard he is special in this cycle alone.

I will go read the link.

[The Night Mammoth]

IntoTheDarkness wrote...

The Night Mammoth wrote...

But you're happy with the Crucible, literally the most contrived thing I've ever seen? 

If it fits the theme, it's not contrived. 

No I'm not. I hate the crucible and the catalyst. I think BOTH the conventional victory and the superweapon are contrived. The crucible's damage is already done, though. If they come up with a new ending with conventional victory, it will double the damage.

Something more plausible and brilliant plotdevice should be used; it's their job to come out with one.

Sorry, I edited my post considerbly.

If it fits the narrative and the theme it isn't contrived. Fighting the Reapers conventionally works well with both of those elements.

Theme: Diversity makes us stronger when united, it allows you to overcome seemingly impossible odds.
Narrative: Gathering War Assets and creating alliances in order to defeat a common enemy. 

Add in something as perfect as ME2's sucide mission, emphasis on suicide, where your preperation before and choices during the mission build up to how well you succeed, and you have an excellent and memorable set-up. 

They did pretty much exactly the same thing in ME3, but stripped away any sense of consequence at the end, something which have been better achieved by a conventional battle.


But you're happy with the Crucible, literally the most contrived thing I've ever seen?

Modifié par The Night Mammoth, 02 avril 2012 - 08:02 .

[IntoTheDarkness]

Ishiken wrote...

IntoTheDarkness wrote...

Liber320 wrote...

Reapers depended heavily on the element of surpirse and either an non-unified or extremely centralized galaxy.

In this cycle, we:

- Were warned and found out about them before the attack

- Stopped them from using the Citadel and shutting down the Mass Relays

- Managed to destroy one of them and find another derelict one, using their technology to create shielding and weapons almost if not equal to theirs

- Had the entire galaxy (more or less) working together to stop them


So while it may be a long shot and would most definately result in an unfathomable amount of casualties, it could definately be done.

that analysis only works if there had been 2 CYCLES in the past, ours and the protheans.

there had been 2000. come on, reapers must have calculated what organics capabilities are under ideal circumstatnces. all conditions you lists could have happended in the past cycles, and even if it did not, reapers should have known the possibility and consequently prepared for such set of evensts.

The better question is why the Reapers didn't move the Citadel into deep space somewhere so the Alliance forces can never reach it instead to being on top of the Sol system.

cuz they(by this I mean writers who wrote them) are not very brilliant?

[Ishiken]

IntoTheDarkness wrote...

ZLurps wrote...

IntoTheDarkness wrote...

ZLurps wrote...

Wow...

Well, I would add following to your thoughts.

There might be cycles that fail, Prothean cycle is example of that, no Reaper dreadnought was made of them. Then, however Reapers find other uses for them. The Collector drones was one use for Protheans, but there's also Reaper destroyers and fighters that may as well be constructed from space faring races that aren't "ascended" to dreadnought form.

What comes to technology... Rachni wars was most likely Sovereign's doing and it's attempt to gain access to the Citadel that was not responding it's command to open the mass relay in the dark space. Rachni wars were about 2000 years before the event's of ME3. I think those 2000 years were important for current galactic races, not only because of technology, but because of political progress that created possibility for united fleet for example. Also, economics.

May get back into this later.

I say your argument of 2,000 years is quite logical, given that reapers' only way of returning is using mass relays.

However, in ME3 we know reapers can just fly in using FTL from the dark space. Why didn't they just come flying in 2000 years ago? If they are as smart as they claim to be(as as Legion tells Shepard), what inevitable circumstances forced to them wait 2,000 years while Sovereign kept failing? Shouldn't Soveregin have foreseen this given his superintellect?

Frankly, this goes to territory where there's no real answers, guy who created the Reapers and founded the lore left BioWare.

One theory was that Reapers started their voyage from dark space when they didn't get to hear from Sovereign, perhaps 1000 year ago.

Then why Sovereign was still trying to open the relay? Did entire Reaper fleet traveled or was some part of their forces left behind where counter part of Citadel is? Sure they weren't dragging portable giant mass relay with them, though since event's of ME3 maybe they did, but accidentally lost it because Reaper #2856, #984 and 1511 lost grip while towing and it slipped in the super nova.

It gets even more funny if you take the Collectors and Harbinger in account. Collectors had live communication link to Harby that we can assume was in dark space with rest of the Reaper fleet. How in the world Sovereign was not able to message Harby that things are bit awry here via Collectors 2000 years ago?

Oh wait, maybe Sovereign was jealous about the Collectors or something, why it didn't fly to dark space and get back with the fleet 1996 years ago?

Bottom line, some things in ME lore are done well, some are not.

lol at collector/harby argument. That was brilliant.

mayble Sovereign was an outdated reaper from the first cycle, like 10 billions years ago.

Harbinger was said to be the first reaper created. Sovereign couldn't have been more outdated than Harbinger.

[Zartarc]

Sepharih wrote...

 I do not care how advanced the reapers are, or what the tecnical readouts of the galactic alliance ships are.  I do not care what lore can be cited to explain how it's impossible for us to defeat them conventionally...because new lore can be established and/or old lore hand waved away at any moment the writer wants to.
All I care about is what the story calls for.

If you have a story about a small group of rebels fighting an unstopable empire symbolized by a giant war machine, then the final battle and conclusion should follow a small group of rebels defeating and destroying that machine (ex. Star Wars).  It doesn't really matter if the way they're able to do it is a little contrived (half a dozen one man fighters against something the size of a moon...please).  As long as it fits with the themes of the story you can find a way to make it work.

The entire game is built around the idea of building a fleet of all the united races of the Galaxy as no cycle has ever done before, and this theme is highlighted over and over again.
Despite constant proclomations of their invincibility, at nearly every story beat aside from Thessia, Shepard is shown achieving a decisive victory despite all the odds stacked against him over and over and over again.
A costly but decisive victory as a result of your actions uniting the galaxy was what this story deserved as far as i'm concerned.

The Rebel Alliance was far from being small. They also had a sizeable fleet at the time when they fought the Death Star. But the Alliance Leaders knew that the conventional weapons of the Death Star would slaughter the fleet in no time. So they opted to use only their space fighters.

And to be honest: Shepard only fought destroyers himself, and not Sovereign-class Reapers. This would've been too much even for Shepard. And if you read the codex about the Reaper War, you know it's possible to defeat small groups of Reapers with the right strategy. But not nearly all of them in one place. The problem was that the Reapers stole the Citadel, which gave the Coalition no other choice then to attack them in the Sol System and reclaim the Citadel in order to use the Crucible. If this dont' happened, the Coalition maybe continiued to delay the Reapers and destroy them piecemail until the Crucible was ready. I think a victory without the Crucible would've simply been impossible.

[Canis_Major]

Im not sure if this accounts for "conventional means", but before final battle you have many reapers on earth, some of them being of the greatest importance (i.e. Harbinger).

What could have been done? a) when fleets clash, focus fire on reapers 1 by 1. try to save / evacuate as many people as possible from earth c) take the fleet back again to Pluto's Mass Relay d) teleport anywhere, last ships plants massive bomb on relay that blows the whole solar system away.

Ok GL HF reapers GL HF earth (better to kill 1 planet than one galaxy). Then repeat for the next system, and so on.

[Sc2mashimaro]

I won't spend a bunch of time arguing about the in-game semantics of it, rather, approaching it as a writer it is clear that - if the writers wanted to write the story so the Reapers could be beat conventionally - they could write it so the Reapers can be beat conventionally. The reason is that they have already build the dramatic tension in to the the narrative. In fact, it's a main narrative theme in Mass Effect: Characters and the codex say something is impossible followed by Shepard finding a way to do it anyway. It's one of the themes the current ending violates.

It is very common in literature to have characters think, say, feel, and otherwise vocalize things which the narrative contradicts. It is a great way to add texture and conflict to a story. In other words, characters and their beliefs/information in a story are allowed to be flawed, the reality is what is SHOWN or the ACTION. For Mass Effect, this means Reapers can be killed by conventional means and, thus, it is possible to write a story where they are defeated by conventional means.

[zephyr2025]

IntoTheDarkness wrote...

Liber320 wrote...

Reapers depended heavily on the element of surpirse and either an non-unified or extremely centralized galaxy.

In this cycle, we:

- Were warned and found out about them before the attack

- Stopped them from using the Citadel and shutting down the Mass Relays

- Managed to destroy one of them and find another derelict one, using their technology to create shielding and weapons almost if not equal to theirs

- Had the entire galaxy (more or less) working together to stop them


So while it may be a long shot and would most definately result in an unfathomable amount of casualties, it could definately be done.

that analysis only works if there had been 2 CYCLES in the past, ours and the protheans.

there had been 2000. come on, reapers must have calculated what organics capabilities are under ideal circumstatnces. all conditions you lists could have happended in the past cycles, and even if it did not, reapers should have known the possibility and consequently prepared for such set of evensts.

Yeah, guys. Cmon. 2000 cycles. That's just a big number. Cmon! I have to be right. 2000! That's so much bigger than 2.

...seriously though, you're just making assumptions and I can just as easily make the opposite assumptions.

[IntoTheDarkness]

zephyr2025 wrote...

So this is all based on assumptions?

They could have easily said that this cycle stands a chance because
1) The citadel wasn't taken over
2) Protheans bought us a lot of time
3) We salvaged Reaper tech from Sovereign/Collector base
4) Each cycle gets help from the last so we should stand a better chance than anyone else

Yeah I guess you can just assume other cycles had better but that's just that, an assumption. I can just assume that all other cycles were less advance than Protheans. Protheans came close and then helped our cycle immensely to seal the deal.

1. 20k cyles in the past bro
2. 20k cycles in the past
3. 20k cycles
4. 20k.

... and in all serieousness, prothenas didn't discover the secret of the citadle until invaded. Their top scientist in Ilos developed a conduit, smalll one-way mass relay.

previous races devleoped the crucible, a weapon to wipe out all reapers although is was not complete. are you still saying protheans were the most advnaced in 20k cycles? plus, again, the reapers should have calculated the organic capability. Some set of eventst that are BEYOND THEIR CALCULATION are the only way to defeat them, which could be Shepard. I wouldn't mind if BW claimed that Sheaprd is the first organic to resist indoctrination or smoenthing along the line to come up with ideas to defeat reapers.

but a superweaon? CONVENTIONAL FIGHTS? NO WAY

[MadRabbit999]

I agree with the OP on this one:

Reapers are several millions, we only see about 2 of them dying in the cutscene? And even a dying one still takes out dozen of other ships.

Even if there were 1 billion (Which there weren't) of fighting allied ships, with a firepower and rate of 1:100000, you would at best end up killing 1000+ reapers before you run out of firepower.

Modifié par MadRabbit999, 02 avril 2012 - 08:09 .

[IntoTheDarkness]

zephyr2025 wrote...

IntoTheDarkness wrote...

Liber320 wrote...

Reapers depended heavily on the element of surpirse and either an non-unified or extremely centralized galaxy.

In this cycle, we:

- Were warned and found out about them before the attack

- Stopped them from using the Citadel and shutting down the Mass Relays

- Managed to destroy one of them and find another derelict one, using their technology to create shielding and weapons almost if not equal to theirs

- Had the entire galaxy (more or less) working together to stop them


So while it may be a long shot and would most definately result in an unfathomable amount of casualties, it could definately be done.

that analysis only works if there had been 2 CYCLES in the past, ours and the protheans.

there had been 2000. come on, reapers must have calculated what organics capabilities are under ideal circumstatnces. all conditions you lists could have happended in the past cycles, and even if it did not, reapers should have known the possibility and consequently prepared for such set of evensts.

Yeah, guys. Cmon. 2000 cycles. That's just a big number. Cmon! I have to be right. 2000! That's so much bigger than 2.

...seriously though, you're just making assumptions and I can just as easily make the opposite assumptions.

NO. you simply don't understand the probaililty, which is not the
same assumption you randomly made with Prothena being the most advanced.
btw I miscalculated. it's 20k now.

if you don't understand,
I suggest you start a protest against weather forecasts and any
betting/gambling companies for they are trcking people with lies.

Modifié par IntoTheDarkness, 02 avril 2012 - 08:11 .

[ZLurps]

Sepharih wrote...

 I do not care how advanced the reapers are, or what the tecnical readouts of the galactic alliance ships are.  I do not care what lore can be cited to explain how it's impossible for us to defeat them conventionally...because new lore can be established and/or old lore hand waved away at any moment the writer wants to.
All I care about is what the story calls for.

..snip...

This approach resulted the endings which make no damn sense. We get to know form ME artbook and FinalHours that final confrontation with TIM was supposed to happen in Cerberus base. Hudson and Walters decided to change it to happen in Citadel because it felt more dramatic. Same goes for exploding citadel over London, story demanded it, so let's do it. Only that those pieces fall to Earth...

[Jamanticarius]

IntoTheDarkness wrote...this cycle is NOT special because there had been so many, like 20,000 in the past.(I miscalculated. Levithian is 10 billions years old I think. thus 20,000 not 2000). but regarding Shepard he is special in this cycle alone.

If the cycles were going on for 10 billion years, that'd be 200,000 cycles, 20,000 if only for a billion.

[IntoTheDarkness]

double posts sorry

Modifié par IntoTheDarkness, 02 avril 2012 - 08:11 .

[Stygian1]

Again, @IntoTheDarkness, regardless of the numbers, BioWare is telling us that none of the previous cycles achieved all of the current variables going for Shepard's cycle. Whether its logical to think that or not, BioWare TELLS us that. The goddamn Star Child tells us that, Mr. King of All Reapers.

20,000 means nothing when the lore also tells us that we are special, unless the lore is lying, our cycle is special...

[IntoTheDarkness]

Stygian1 wrote...

Again, @IntoTheDarkness, regardless of the numbers, BioWare is telling us that none of the previous cycles achieved all of the current variables going for Shepard's cycle. Whether its logical to think that or not, BioWare TELLS us that. The goddamn Star Child tells us that, Mr. King of All Reapers.

20,000 means nothing when the lore also tells us that we are special, unless the lore is lying, our cycle is special...

Yeah, I see your point. (did you post something along the line before this? I didn't see your previous post.)


however, It's plain stupid since our circumstances could have been so much better. You know, a spectre Saren was indoctrinated, the council ignored the warning, races had grudges against each other, races refused to unite unless Shepard solved their problem... and to say despite all these shortcomings we were in the best circumstances out of 20,000 cycle sounds unplausible. Well it's a fact if BW claimed so, but still stupid.

Modifié par IntoTheDarkness, 02 avril 2012 - 08:15 .

[Aulis Vaara]

Flextt wrote...

The actual problem with conventional battles against Reaper is that they outrange our fleets.

Fleets outranging each other, in space? This is why I very much dislike the separation of lore and cutscene space battle mechanics. If this was a real space battle as described by the lore, you would see why that statement doesn't make sense.

And please don't give me the "space battles would be less cool at a distance" line. You could make long range shots way more awesome looking than a thousand shots fired at what is basically point blank range.

Grasich wrote...

Looking at it from a statistic point of view, it's impossible to win regardless of how you try.

Actually, from a statistics point of view, if we assume the chance of beating the Reapers are not zero, some cycle will eventually beat them (and giving the next cycle a chance would have actually been a very satisfying "bad" ending). If the chance is actually zero, this is a story about inevitability while constantly giving us hints that it isn't.



All in all, the story is not consistently enough written with regards to Reaper intelligence and power to give a really good estimate on if they can be defeated or not.

I still would have preferred an ending where we take them by surprise with a dark energy weapon that blows up the sun, sacrificing earth but decimating the Reapers. How it would go further from that I'm not entirely sure of, but that would've been the most believable tactic.