Skirlasvoud wrote...
A suprisingly comprehenisive and capable post.
However, I must disagree with your Thanix Cannon statements, or the way in which an a-symetric, geurilla war is fought.
It takes three to four dreadnoughts with the CURRENT level
of kinetic shot based technology to kill a reaper. Nowhere does it state that those four ships have Thanix Technology.
You then go on to say that the reapers can be seen shrugging off shots fired at them, or those shots simply missing the reapers. Well, here's the thing: Those aren't Thanix shots.
Watch the video where the Normandy takes on the suicide mission. Compare the one where you haven't upgraded your kinetic cannons, to the video where you have a Thanix Cannon.
Kinetic: Normandy fires half a dozen shells at the collector ship from close range, to do any damage at all.
Thanix: Normandy fires a MASSIVE blue beam at the collector from a respectable distance away, destroying it in two, albeit slower shots.
Now go back to the Sword video. See any Massive Blue beams fired? No? That means that there are no Thanix Cannons present. What you do see is a few reaper destroyed by a few good kinetic shots to the arms and that's just the old technology. Also, the Thanix cannon's firing solution is much faster than a kinetic based shot and can be steered, just like the reapers do.
If the effectiveness of the suicide mission Thanix cannon, compared to normal kinetic shots is any indication, than that means you can comfortably multiply the damages ten fold if the fleet had been armed with Thanix cannons above Earth through added precision and firepower.
No, two thanix armed Dreadnaught or even a single one, can very likely go ****** for tat with any reaper capital ship.
It is odd that we see none of that though, no? The volus dreadnought is stated to have thanix cannons, but none is shown. There isn't a single blue beam found. Bioware forgot about the Thanix.
Granted however, the reason why the Codex narrates under the assumption of an obsolete kinetic fleet, is because Thanix technology is likely to be expensive and in no way could we have armed more than half our ships with it. Your calculations are reasonably correct. I might up the number to a hundred reaper losses when both fleets go head on, but we won't be able to destroy the reapers.
However, on to my second point: The fleets aren't going head on. The Alliance fleet is, but the reapers aren't and in fact, can't.
There may be thousands of reapers in excistence, but they aren't all gathered around earth. Like any good occupying force, you need to spread out your forces across all enemy territory. There may at best, have been a hundred around earth and it's very likely that a thanix fleet could have oblitherated those, then play hide and seek with the reaper fleet for the next hundred years. Remember, we're fighting a geurilla war here.
Even Liara stated, that it will take the reapers a hundred years or a few decades to wipe out all of civilization. And to do that, they need to spread out and keep the pressure on all front, divide their forces. You can't keep flying around as a single fleet of a thousand reapers and do one planet at a time. This would take ages and the supressed populace will have a chance to return from unoccupied once they leave. No, those thousands of reapers need to spread their forces across a thousand planets, while the allied forces don't have to.
Look at Palavan's moon. Despite all their might, the Reapers still haven't found the energy to conquer it. They might have if they put all their might in it, but Palavan is actively resisting, despite more than a dozen reaper capital ships present there. What's more, the moon is said to be resupplying the Turian fleet. In MP, your goal is to hold your ground, because it's such an important feuling station. The reapers haven't been able to manage, because they need to spread their forces.
The answer to your mathmetics is simple: Blitzkrieg and geurilla warfare. We're not going face to face with the reapers. We simply hit them where it hurts and bleed THEM dry now that we've given up on keeping up fronts. Garrus advises the Turian fleet to pull out from maintaining lines and so does hacket. Yes we will get hammered when we keep a defensive line around Earth, but things are different when you abandon that.
Think lateraly and what you have is a unified fleet of a more than a hundred dreadnoughts, facing isolated pockets of maybe a dozen Reaper ships per each planet. The full might of the allied fleets vs 12 reapers? No chance. We'll take far fewer casualties then 12 dreadnoughts. Maybe just two when we land behind them and they don't have the local numbers to keep up a solid formation. The odds become 1:10 and when that happens, a hundred ships can defeat a thousand.
And remember, we can rebuild. For every liberated world, we can refeul and reconstruct. The reapers however, can not replenish their numbers. The most they'll get out of this cycle is one capital ship and a few destroyers.
Good point about the Thanix weapons, but they've already been addressed. We never do see Thanix beams fired because they have essentially been retconned from the entire game. Those blue, missile like shots being fired could be kinetic strikes, or they could maybe Thanix weapons, we just don't know.
As for the number of dreadnoughts it takes, yes the Codex entry does state that you need 3-4 dreadnoughts with kinetic weapons, but I've already addressed this issue stating that yes Thanix weapons do increase our odds, let's say now it takes 1 dreadnought lost per 1 Reaper capital destroyed. Thats still only around 85 Reaper capitals destroyed at the cost of all of our dreadnoughts. Add in the remaining number of Reaper capitals left, coupled with the hundreds of remaining Reaper destroyers, and you'll have an incredibly bleak scenario left.
And it's already been mentioned in a post where the codex states that by 2186 and the start of the Reaper invasion, Thanix weapons have been widely implemented throughout the Alliance navy. And look at how effective they've been. The Alliance fleets gathered at Arcturus were slaughtered. The Alliance defenses above Earth? Wiped out in a matter of minutes.
Let's not forget the Turians, who originally created the Thanix weapons by reverse engineering the tech from Sovereign's remains. Surely their fleet would have Thanix weapon upgrades by now right? So how did they do in the war? Palaven is lost, Menae is under heavy seige, and their colonies are burning.
Primarch Victus even says in a conversation with Garrus how they lost two dreadnoughts within an hour. That certainly gives us an idea about how much trouble the strongest military in the galaxy is faring and its not looking good.
As for your second point. The fact that the Reapers don't need to engage us head on is a testament to their strength. We need a massive fleet made up of all the races of the galaxy just to stand a chance at engaging one Reaper force over Earth. And thats just to escort the Crucible. Imagine how many more we'd need in a campaign to actually retake Earth.
Then add up how many ships we'd lose. One destroyer can easily take out a cruiser within a few shots. Sure the cruiser can still beat a destroyer, but as I've outlined before, it'd have to be extremely lucky and well piloted in order to survive. So we can assume the losses for our cruiser and frigates would be high, just for us to get into position. Now in come the Reaper capital ships, with their escorts of hundreds of Occuli armed with lasers powerful enough to rip through the Normandy's armor and shields. Think of how much havoc they'd cause on the rest of our ships. Our dreadnoughts would then come into engage, but considering how easily the Reapers wiped the floor with them before, our chances still look slim. Losses will undoubtedly be high and extraordinarily disproportionately slanted in the Reaper's favor.
What would happen, even after all that and all those losses, if we manage to retake Earth? Well we'd have to defend it won't we? Again,
it took all of our strength just to retake Earth.
Factor in the battle losses and the necessary ships and men that'd we have to divert to defend Earth, how then could we possibly face another similar force if we wanted to retake Palaven? And even if by some miracle we manage to win at Palaven, how could we then both hold onto Earth and Palaven and try to retake Thessia? We'd be stretch out too thin. Plus, while we're busy retaking Thessia, what's to stop the Reapers from coming bak and retaking a now weakened Earth? See what I'm getting to here? The numbers don't add up. We in no way have enough numbers to fully retake the galaxy.
And that's why the Reapers don't have to worry about stretching their forces thin in the same way we do. Because we'd have to outnumber just to stand a chance, they can afford to launch a similar operation with far fewer ships, with the result being we'd losing more than they would.
Furthermore, and I can't stress this enough, but remember the resource and supply issue. The one end all for why a conventional, or a guerrilla campaign would never work. The Reapers currently occupy most of the homeworlds and colonies of the major races of the galaxy. This means that we're already now pressed for resources as it is. Even if we were to engage in a guerrilla campaign, we'd have to find a way to resupply, rearm, and feed our troops right? You can't have an insrugency if you can't feed it after all.
So that means you'd have to fight conventionally just to hold onto whatever resource base you have. And when those resources run out, you'd have to try and retake some of the territories you've lost to regain their resources right? Like I've outlined above, it would take a Herculean effort just to retake one world back let alone two. And then you'd have to hold them, while trying to retake your third. Plus factor in again the heavy casualties along the way.
The Reapers meanwhile don't have to worry about supplies or resources, and because they control most of them, they can deny us access to them. And without those resources, we're doomed.
Lastly, consider the advantages of a guerrilla style campaign against the force invading you. The whole point is to break the morale of your enemy through sabotage, constant hit and run tactics, and denying them supplies/resources. Well, look at what we're facing. The Reapers don't have to worry about morale so that's out of the question. Hit and run tactics, considering how outclassed we are, would require again the right amount of luck and extraordinarily good conditions for us to succeed. And those conditions are few and far between. While we wait for them to arise, the Reapers would keep steamrolling through the galaxy, denying us access to even more basic resources, which they don't again even need.
Seeing how fruitless this style of warfare would be against the Reapers, with the stalled progress, heavy losses, and little results, how long before the allied races start abandoning the war effort? Remember how much effort we'd have to go through just to convince them to buy along into the Crucible project? Without the promise of a magical Reaper killing device, why would the Turians or Asari commit their few remaining ships in a guerrilla campaign that would go nowhere while their homeworlds burn? The Reapers have the luxury of time because of this. All they have to do is deny us access to resources and sit back while we bicker amongst ourselves for whats little thats left. As such, the Reapers would simply break us first.
Modifié par A0170, 24 avril 2012 - 01:29 .
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