UPDATE: This is a post that I made before the EC came out discussing the impossibility of conventional victory and why the Crucible was the only option. Due to a lot of "conventional victory" threads popping up after the EC came out, rather than repeatedly quote this (as I've been doing), I've bumped it for visibility and judgment in the wake of the Refusal Ending.
Many people say the Refusal Ending should've allowed for conventional victory given a high enough EMS. In this post I wrote some time back, I would humbly like to suggest that such is impossible, and NOT just because the writers tell us. It is in the game lore, Codex, and everything.
It is a long read, but I put some time and effort into researching, analyzing, and extrapolating, so I believe you may find it worth the time.
This thread used to be named "Why the Crucible may really be the only way to defeat the Reapers".
This OP remains unedited besides what's in white text (in this box) from the time it was originally posted.
TL;DR: The Crucible is the only way to defeat the Reapers.
Hi everyone. I've seen a lot of posts and threads over the forums discussing defeating Reapers without the Crucible, either with conventional (ship-to-ship) or unconventional ("creative") warfare. I've been in touch with a few people on the forums and have read through a few different threads that I'll link. These threads have great ideas in them and go to some lengths to adequately prove their ideas, so check them out if you have time. I will be drawing upon them in a comprehensive way.
For the purposes of discussion, I will try to look at everything assuming that the state of the galaxy is the "best" to fight the Reapers. This means that the Geth and Quarians are united, and the Turians, Krogan, and Salarians (*gasp* genophage sabotage) are with you, and the Asari too. And of course the other non-Council races such as the elcor, hanar, volus, etc. to the degree of information we have about them.
I will be liberal with Allied Fleet numbers and conservative with Reaper numbers, resulting in comparisons that will be inflated in the Allied Fleet's best interests. If the Reapers can't be defeated with such inflated numbers, then they can't be defeated with the "real" numbers.
The crux of the thread is that the Reapers are an unconventional force that cannot be defeated in any kind of warfare save the deus ex machinima that is the Crucible. In my usual fashion, I will split this OP into sections. I've now included a TL;DR after each section title so you can just read up here if you'd like. If you disagree, however, please read the entire section to see where I'm coming from.
Contents (TL;DR too):
I. The Moron Premise: We will assume in this thread that Reapers are not as moronic as they seem in ME3.
II. The Allied Fleet: Organics, at most, have the effective capability of 170 dreadnoughts.
III. The Reaper Fleet: The Reapers, at a minimum, have 295 Sovereign-class ships.
IV. Non-Capital Ships: Cruisers/destroyers and figheters/occuli will be considered negligible.
V. Reapers Defeated: We've been lucky in our successes so far.
VI. Reaper Weaknesses: The Reapers have zero conventional weaknesses; in order to hurt the Reapers' war efforts, we simply must kill Reapers.
VII. Conventional Warfare: We will lose this way.
VIII. Unconventional Warfare: These tactics will either not work or will hurt us more than they hurt the Reapers and are not viable tactics.
IX. The Crucible: The Crucible is the only way to defeat the Reapers.
X. Links: Links to other threads, Codex entries, sources, etc.
WARNING: This thread will be very long and may be "technical" to the point of overkill.
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I. The Moron Premise
Despite ME1 and ME2 and what common sense may dictate, we see, on the surface, something in ME3 that I would like to call the Moron Premise for obvious reasons.
The Moron Premise: This is the premise that all Reapers are, in-game, morons.
Part of this is due to the purposes of plot, gameplay, etc., but there are some disturbing instances here and there. The Tuchanka Reaper could have simply lifted off ground for a better angle and scorched the dirt until it was glass. The Rannoch Reaper could at least have angled its laser horizontally versus vertically. The Reaper Fleet at Earth could have targeted the Crucible simultaneously with their hyper-accurate-long-distance-molten-metal-beam-guns and destroyed it before it was game over. We can create a list on and on of how "smart" Reapers would have obliterated the resistance effort at several instances.
One of the most baffling things is not taking control of the Citadel at all until they learn that the Crucible is nearly complete. They could have taken the Citadel after the Batarians, Arcturus, Earth, Palaven, Thessia, etc. by storming it with just a few capital ships (we don't see any actual Citadel defense fleets, but we know the fleets are already spread thin at homeworlds).
Then they could arguably turn the relays on/off. That would give a Game Over screen pretty fast.
The reason for the experimental validity of the Moron Premise is for gameplay and story reasons. For the sake of discussion, however, it would be better to assume the Reapers are at least as smart as us. Trying to predict smarter-than-human tactics is almost oxymoronic for our efforts.
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II. The Allied Fleet
I'm going to attempt to calculate the "effective dreadnought capability" of the Allied Fleet for the purposes of battling Sovereign-class Reapers. This section will be devoted to coming up with a number that we see will be grossly inflated in the face of ambiguity.
We have a Codex entry that gives us the amount of Council dreadnoughts before the Reaper invasion:
Turian = 39
Asari = 20
Salarian = 16
Human = 9
Volus (but under Turian command) = 1
Together, this gives us 85 dreadnoughts. The Elcor and Hanar are never said to have any dreadnoughts. The Geth and Quarians, however, are very capable fighting forces we must take into account.
We know from the in-game description of the War Assets that the Geth "built almost as many dreadnoughts as the Turians". Let's give them the benefit of the doubt here and assume they built exactly as many - 39 dreadnoughts.
Now for the Quarians. While there are 50 000 ships, the Civilian Fleet is unequipped for fighting really and remains back at Rannoch after the priority mission. Only the Patrol Fleet and Heavy Fleet are sent around. Sending the Civilian Fleet into battle is a desperate last-ditch attempt; we will treat them as civilians in war here and will assume that they, like other civilians, won't really be fighting. The numbers will end up being inflated anyways to overcompensate.
So we have the Patrol Fleet and Heavy Fleet. The Patrol Fleet has only "light frigates and fighters" while the Havy Fleet has "heavy frigates and advanced fighter squadrons". There are no dreadnoughts.
But clearly they are effective in battle. We should try to come up with an equivalent number of dreadnoughts that their fleet "effectively" has. The Rannoch Reaper fight will be ignored here because it does not fit in with Reaper lore (more on that in Part IV).
I know War Assets are heavily flawed, but I don't see a better way to infer the Quarians' capability here. From the ME Wiki, the War Assets of the Heavy Fleet + Patrol Fleet can be at a maximum of around 525. The Geth Fleet is at about 450. Now the Geth Fleet is a "pure" measure of military capability as it contains the entire fleet (versus "2nd Fleet", "6th Fleet", "Person X", etc.) so for the sake of getting a number let's use a conversion rate.
Geth Dreadnoughts / "Effective" Quarian Dreadnoughts = Geth Fleet War Assets / Quarian Fleet War Assets
39 / Q = 450 / 525 --> Q = 45.5.
Let's round up to 46. Notice how inflated this number is - it implies the Quarians are vastly superior to the rest of the organics in terms of military capability. But for the purposes of discussion, I'm going to go with it because showing Allied Forces can't win with inflated numbers means they can't win with their "real" numbers.
So we have a total of 170 "dreadnoughts" in the Allied Fleet at maximum. This does not include dreadnoughts already lost, which I don't have specific numbers for.
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III. The Reaper Fleet
Determining the number of Sovereign-class ships (hereafter referred to as Sovvys) will be an intellectual exercise. Our sanity's saving grace, however, is that we merely need to take the minimum number. There are 3 main ways to estimate this based on "facts", and all give differing results. a.m.p. has a thread that discusses this more in depth, and so does A0170. I won't be going as in-depth as they did (please visit their threads too, some great discussion there) but will draw a bit upon their conclusions and give some of my own two cents.
1. In-Game Quotes: Garrus said that one thousand Reaper ships exist. Sovereign said that "we are legion". These could, taken literally, imply that there are 1 000 Sovvys. However, these quotes are kind of random and may not be that reliable.
2. Backwards Induction: This is based entirely on lore and relies on the Leviathan of Dis, Harbinger, and the Codex entry on Sovvy creation.
First, note that the Codex says that a single species is used to produce these "massive ships". I don't mean to be overly nitpicky, but it never said that only one Sovvy was created per cycle. It just said one species was used. One species could perhaps create more than one Sovvy. If the Reapers need, for example, 1 billion organics to create one Sovvy, then population (and to some degree resistance; i.e. Reapers killing instead of harvesting) would be variables that could result in multiple Sovvys per cycle. But rather than guess around, let's be conservative with Reaper numbers and say that only one Sovvy is created on average per cycle.
The Leviathan of Dis gives a Reaper history of approximately 1 billion years, or 20 000 cycles. More cycles occurred due to Harbinger's age (the "oldest" in the "Reaper armada") but again, we'll be conservative and just leave it at 20 000 cycles. This would initially make it seem like there are that many Sovvys.
But the number must be less than that due to two reasons: (A) Sovvy ships destroyed in the past and (
some cycles fail to produce Reapers. For (A), we only know of one case where it absolutely happens (Derelict Reaper in ME2) and one probable case (Leviathan of Dis). The Protheans never mentioned destroying any of them. Of course, due to the Moron Premise, we end up destroying some. But it basically seems like dead Sovvys in the past are random occurrences - in the big picure of 20,000 they would make a relatively small difference.
(
is a little more interesting. Reapers would not be able to create new Sovvys if the given race is incompatible with the genetic-mush process, like the Protheans. Humans are compatible; we've just stopped them temporarily. If the Reapers win/won, they'd have no difficulty going around and getting a new human Reaper. We do not know if the Insuannon, the race before the Protheans, were formed into Reapers are not.
We have an observable 50% compatibility ratio. But this can't be taken as fact because it's just two cycles out of 20 000 (not statistically significant) - yet we can make allowances for plot/story significance.
We really get a range of 10 000 - 20 000 Sovvys. Not a very friendly number.
3. Mass Effect 2 Ending Cutscene: Believe it or not, someone who I shall call The Number One Mass Effect Fan Of All Time actually counted the number of (faded in the background) Reapers seen at the end of ME2. The number is 295 (see the Trivia section). Nothing more to this train of thought.
4. Battle of Earth: a.m.p. has generously counted and told us there are about 200 Reapers at Earth. But this is just at Earth - there are clearly others throughout the galaxy. She concludes that there are thousands of Reapers in the galaxy. The main crux here is that there must be more than 200 Reapers, and the number 200 will not work for our purposes because Reapers do exist elsewhere for sure.
So from all of this, I will go forward with the idea that the Reapers have at least 295 Sovvys.
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IV. Non-Capital Ships
We have no numbers for cruisers and fighters (Allied) or for destroyers and occuli (Reapers). We are given indications by the Codex that they can match each other theoretically 1v1. We also know their numbers are greater than capital ships, but we don't know by how much.
There is so much uncertainty here that for the sake of the bigger picture, I will not be including non-capital ships in this analysis. If anyone has an idea of how to approximate it well (hopefully not arbitrarily) that would be great and I would definitely welcome the ideas.
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V. Reapers Defeated
The Reapers we've defeated have been in extremely lucky situations. Here are the TL;DR versions of some reasons why.
Sovereign: Killing Saren disabled its shields.
Tuchanka: Never lifted off the ground.
Rannoch: Never fired its laser from side to side.
Also, remember that on ground, Reapers have to lower their defenses substantially. Also, Tuchanka and Rannoch (not capitals) were fights in which Shepard had some definite plot immunity. Epic for gameplay, cutscenes, and storytelling, but out of touch with "lore" in a strict sense. The Moron Premise allowed for their defeat.
During the attack on Palaven, the Turians were lucky and FTL-ed into the midst of Reapers and killed "several capital ships". But the Reapers shrugged it off and FTL-ed straight to Palaven (why didn't they do that first?). In large groups of Reapers, such tactics, as the Codex notes, are suicide because Reapers will obliterate the dreadnoughts easily.
Remember, according to the Codex, no dreadnought has survived a direct hit from a Sovvy weapon. Disregarding the Moron Premise, this automatically makes current victories more luck than anything.
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VI. Reaper Weaknesses
Typically, in asymmetric warfare, we'd try to find some way to weaken the enemy's structure or something rather than fight them outright because in outright battle we might lose. Wars in the past could be heavily influenced by weak points other than random soldiers.
However, the Reapers require no resources. The Codex tells us that they actually end up destroying refineries as they move through. They are completely self-sufficient and do not even need planets to discharge static buildups from FTL travel. We cannot destroy "food" and starve the Reapers. Even something as drastic as Halo's strategy against the Flood would not work.
There are no "high value targets" in terms of locations and people. They do not have any homeworlds or critical positions they must defend other than the Citadel (which they ignored due to the Moron Premise). While Harbinger is decided to be the oldest and most powerful, and the Rannoch Reaper's reference of him indicates that he at least holds some respect, we know that the Catalyst is the one in control. But we only know that in retrospect; we need the Crucible to discover that. Otherwise, killing any supposed "high value target" Reapers will, in reality, not accomplish much. Reapers are perfectly capable of operating in groups and alone (again, ignoring the Moron Premise we see on Tuchanka/Rannoch for gameplay reasons).
The Reapers also can survive in space whereas organics need specific environments to survive. This includes spaceships' self-contained environments as well.
Destroying harvestation camps and other similar structures will only have the Reapers rebuild them with time.
Lastly, there is no internal political structure within the Reapers that we can exploit. There is no one "back home protesting the war", so to speak, and no one second-guesses the Reaper goals as a Reaper. No Reaper will turn. They pursue their goal with a single-mindedness that makes sowing dissent an impossible and irrelevant strategy.
Hackett said that he wanted to find holes in the Reapers' (plot?) armor and hit them hard there. But there are no crippling weak spots or pressure points.
In addition to their scope of time, the Reapers have a level of technology that far outclasses us (but more on this later). So what are the weak spots? Are there any?
Analyzing this question leads me to a single conclusion. There are no weak spots. We must kill each and every Reaper completely. Tactics that would apply in organic situations don't apply. There is no way to get around the hard part of finding ways to actually kill Reapers.
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VII. Conventional Warfare
Now we know we can't defeat Reapers 1v1. But here, I'm going to try to analyze the question in a little more detail.
First off, no ship has yet survived a direct hit from a Sovvy. The Reapers therefore have the powerful ability to one-shot any of our ships. Due to their superior targeting computers, they can shoot both from farther away and with greater accuracy. On average, the Codex tells us that about 4 dreadnoughts can equal 1 Sovvy in a straight-up fight. Better results happen with Thannix, but we'll come back to that later.
Let's do straight-up fights. I'm going to measure fleet strength in terms of Sovvys. Obviously, this refers to the military capability of a Reaper capital class ship in battle. As is the case when dealing with statistics, this will all be based on averages. The numbers may play out differently at different times, but on average, I'm going to trust the Codex's "exchange rate" of 4 dreadnoughts for 1 Sovvy.
Now take the 170 dreadnoughts from earlier (remember, a super generous estimate). Basic math means that, rounding up, the Allied Fleet has the military capability of 43 Sovvys.
We have a minimum of 295 Sovvys on the Reapers' side.
43 <<< 295.
Okay, we knew that it was a long shot. But Thannix canons might be better. Surely we should incorporate this idea to get a better picture. I'm going to try to bring Thannix canons back into the equation (literally). Rather than guess as to how much better Thannix canons make dreadnoughts, let's look at how much better dreadnoughts would have to be to defeat the Reapers and then see if the Thannix canons can give this level of improvement. Bear with me for a bit please, because I know that previous sentence may have sounded confusing.
Let's introduce "T", a multiplier that indicates how much amplified effectiveness per dreadnought is needed to match the minimum capability of the Reapers. Since we're using very broad-based numbers, this is simple math:
T ( 170 / 4 ) = 295
Rounding to single digits, T = 7.
This means that Thannix canons need to amplify the power of dreadnoughts by a factor of 7 for them, at best (with our INFLATED numbers), to be on equal footing with the absolute minimum Reaper strength. When the Codex says that Thannix canons can give "better results", I doubt that means seven times as powerful. That's a huge differential.
For example, if we decide the Reaper number based on popular vote (thread by A0170, corresponding poll), we'd guess there'd be around 20 000 Reapers. In fact, 70% believed there are over 1 000 Reapers. If we take just 1 000 Reapers, we're looking at a Thannix multiplier of about 24. Are Thannix canons really that effective? Again, this is with our inflated Allied Fleet numbers. Basically, while Thannix weapons will help, I do not think they will help us defeat the Reapers. We are looking, again, at a huge required differential.
The idea that conventional means can't defeat the Reapers has been hammered into us in the game, but beyond the negativity, if we just look at straight up numbers, we cannot win.
We are clearly outclassed in a straight-up fight.
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VIII. Unconventional Warfare
This is where things can get interesting and even a bit speculative. We basically have to come up with creative ways to possibly kill Reapers. Remember, Reapers are the only targets in the Reaper War. There are no supply lines, VIPs, homeworlds, etc.; it's just the Reapers.
Warning: This part will be LONG.
A. FTL Collisions:
a.m.p. has a thread that discusses this more in detail. Also, A0170's thread touches upon this. Basically, slamming a ship in FTL is impossible because of the safety mechanisms that are embedded in FTL drives. However, there was an attack on a Turian colony named Taetrus where terrorists reprogrammed the FTL drive of a ship to create a devastating crash. We are not told how devastating it was (tens of thousands were killed, but doesn't a nuke do that too?), but still. Basically, though, the idea was retconned - as of ME3, the "official" Codex idea is that it's impossible.
Let's suggest that somehow EDI or an equivalently powerful and free AI can somehow rearrange the FTL safety protocols to allow for collisions, however. How effective would it be? Remember, all we know from the Codex is that some starship admirals have "suggested" that an FTL kamikaze run "could" obliterate a Sovvy. But let's look at this in a little more detail for the sake of academic interest.
The basic intuition is that things moving at higher speeds have higher energies due to higher velocities. Such higher energies would be "transferred" through collisions via explosions. Higher energies naturally give stronger impacts. We can look at this situation (very basic physics) through kinetic energies or momentum.
The latter, from what I understand, may pose a problem here. ME3 does not disprove Einstein's special relativity; that is, the theory of special relativity is accepted as science in the ME universe along with FTL. Now, I know this is science fiction, so that's fine, but this creates a conundrum when we consider momentum at superluminal (FTL) velocities. There are probably some super smart physics people here who can discuss this further.
Basically, p = m v , where p is momentum, m is mass, and v is velocity. A high enough velocity can offset a low mass to create high momentum. This is the basic idea of using "useless" transport ships and turning them into deadly weapons as bombs, essentially, by moving them quickly.
But the special relativity equation applies a Lorentz factor. This changes the equation to the following:
p = ( m v ) / sqrt ( 1 - v^2 / c^2 ) , where c is the speed of light. We see two immediate side effects of this equation just from the math:
1. To travel at the speed of light, an object would have to have an infinite momentum; i.e. an object cannot travel at the speed of light.
2. If an object travels faster than the speed of light, it has an "imaginary" mass in the sense that the mass will be a factor of "i", the square root of negative 1.
What does this mean in the scifi universe of ME? It means that we cannot always increase velocity, even beyond the speed of light, and expect this to result in collisions greater in energy than subluminal velocities. The only asset FTL collisions would have would be that the Reapers would be unable to see them coming (for obvious reasons).
We also can see that lowering mass via mass effect fields is a bit of an oversimplification (as mass must not be lowered but must actually somehow become "imaginary"; it must become a factor of the square root of negative one in order to have "true" FTL), but that's fine because this is, after all, scifi. That's a different thread of discussion.
Basically, FTL speeds wouldn't matter because we are not given anything close to a solid statement on how momentum in FTL transfers to momentum outside of the "ME field bubble" generated. We are given vague generalizations. What we really need are speeds as close to the speed of light as possible.
Let's discuss the pros and cons of that.
The obvious pro is that it can generate huge amounts of energy, near-infinite, that would overpower the Reapers.
The con is that we can't get there. Again, this is special relativity-based. Since space is empty, if you give something an initial push and wait long enough, it will accelerate without bound (assuming it doesn't hit anything, no gravitational forces, etc. etc.) and eventually reach fast speeds. The problem though is that once you get to "relativistic speeds" (sizable fractions of the speed of light), it will take more and more energy to get the same level of acceleration. Eventually, just like momentum becomes infinite, the amount of force needed to continue to accelerate will increase and increase until it reaches infinity.
We'd have to feed so much energy into the process that it would be self-defeating. Also, the Reapers would see the slower-than-light-ship coming and could FTL out of the way. We also need a big enough room and long enough line to begin the acceleration as it will take time to accelerate to the desirable speeds.
So accelerating ships to near-light speeds for high-energy collisions also seems unfeasible.
B. Supernova / Relay Explosions:
The Codex states that it's unfeasible to Relays as "nukes" against the Reapers (link). Basically, it'd destroy the worlds and kill the people you're trying to save while the Reapers probably don't give a crap. Also, disregarding the Moron Premise, Reapers can FTL to escape it and can FTL around the galaxy until they get to another relay. Essentially, all this would do is delay them.
Let's assume the Reapers are for some reason in a system that holds no value to us, or we pull a Prothean and consider such a system a possibly necessary sacrifice. Academically speaking, how much would it delay them?
MyChemicalBromance has a great thread where he discusses space travel without the relays. He notes a Codex entry gives Reaper FTL speeds at about 30 light years per day (ly/day). Before we use that number, let's check to see if it can describe Reaper speeds through Dark Space.
Let's be super nice and round up the Reapers' travel time to 4 years.
(30)(365)(4) = 43 800 ly in 4 years
How big is this relevant to intergalactic space? Intergalactic distances are greater than interstellar distances by a magnitude of 10^6 (one million times as big). The Andromeda galaxy, for example, is 2.6 million light years away.
Does it make sense for the Reapers to be so close to the galaxy that they aren't even really in Dark Space? The end of ME2 makes it difficult to extrapolate their distance from the cutscene. But it seems like the Reapers aren't really in Dark Space; the number seems kind of small. But the fact they can "view" the entire galaxy means they aren't really in the middle but are actually close (in the middle, the view of the galaxy would be much smaller).
But we'll take it for the purposes of discussion. Taking the speed at face value, let's apply it to interstellar travel as that's the relevant thing here. The Reapers don't have to discharge or get fuel, so we can approximate their travel as a straight line.
a.m.p. has a great thread where she talks about distances between relays. She kindly counted and decided there are 47 relays at the end of ME3 on the galaxy map. We know the radius of the Milky Way is about 50 000 ly. Lets crudely find the mass relay density. Again, this will be a smaller number than the real number because many relays have not been activated, and the Reapers know the entire network and may find closer relays much more easily.
Sparing some ugly numbers (someone else can see if they come up with something different), I got that from a given point in the galaxy, on average, you will find a relay (at a radius of) in 12 924 ly in all directions. This is approximately one-fourth of the generous number that Reapers can travel in 4 years.
Basically, destroying the relays would, on average, only delay the Reapers that specific system by a little over a year.
The Reapers also have instant communication and are not collected in one system. Other Reapers would pick up the slack if there's anything left somehow. You're essentially delaying a fraction of the Reapers for a year, on average, if you destroy a system.
You'd have to do simulatenous relay destructions to delay all the Reapers. Ignoring the obvious massive organic casualties, it's still just delaying. The Reapers are patient. Even if they have to FTL around the entire galaxy, they know where to go based on their maps of the relays, and they will eventually get there.
Also, remember, without the resources of the more important systems, mounting real defenses against Reapers would be even more problematic.
So relay destruction isn't the most viable option.
C. Lasers:
This is something I haven't seen much discussion of in the forums. It tuns out that kinetic barries do not block lasers.
That is something astonishing. The Reapers' weapons aren't lasers (molten metal shot out at a sizable fraction of the speed of light), nor are Thannix weapons. We know the Reapers' huge shields obviously are a big factor in their decisive conventional military capability.
But lasers can go right by them. Lasers also get shot at the speed of light, so it's impossible to dodge unless they hack our computers.
The cons of lasers listed in the Wiki/Codex are basically that they overheat, require so much maintence that they're low powered, and are only short-range.
Basically, they're inefficient and we wouldn't be able to get into position to fire them (Reapers would obliterate us with their numbers).
We also don't know how effective/quickly lasers would kill the Reapers. Remember, no ship (not even dreadnoughts) have survived a single hit from a Sovvy. If we FTL-ed in (assuming our technology is that precise), we'd have to be able to kill them before they could get off a single shot.
Theoretically, powerful enough lasers could help obliterate the Reapers, but we're given indications that, unfortunately, the technology has inefficiencies and side effects that undermine their military effectiveness, and tactics that utilize them are amongst the most daring/dangerous. We're not given a lot of info, but it seems that lasers won't work.
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IX. The Crucible
Any tactic that could possibly weaken the Reapers (virus, etc.) would have to be done simultaneously. There is no way to defeat them conventionally. Unconventional options seem to have side effects or difficulties (not to mention ambiguities) that make them difficult to be viable.
So we get the Crucible, the deus ex machinima plot device that kills the Reapers. It's pretty much the only way that we can do it. Sure, it seems a little cheap to be introduced in the last hour (i.e. ME3; where was it when humans first discovered Mars and why was it only found when Earth got attacked?), but, unfortunately, I do not think the Reapers can be defeated any other way.
A lot of it has to do with their technology. A lot of it also has to do with them being simply an unconventional enemy without supply lines, homeworlds, high-value targets, or resource needs. A lot of it also has to do with abandoning the Moron Premise.
Arguing away the Reapers is difficult because we've seen their single-mindedness with which they pursue their goal. Organics' main "goal" is to ensure the continuation of their species. For Reapers, it is the cycle, which the Catalyst views as the Mandate From Heaven.
Remember that all the numbers and discussion preceding this was using numbers that are heavily inflated in organics' favor. The "real" numbers are likely much more in the Reapers' favor and therefore the Reapers are probably much more relatively powerful than discussed here.
I'm not going to argue about the Crucible itself (how it got built, how the Reapers didn't stop it, how it works, why it's activated that way, why the Catalyst helps Shepard, etc.) but rather I'm trying to show that a superweapon was really the only way to defeat the Reapers.
Basically, the only way the Reapers could have been defeated was with a massive/super-weapon that affected them effectively all at once. This is the Crucible.
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X. Links
UPDATE: As of today, these links may be "oudated", but they are still great reads and have relevant information.
If you have made it this far, you deserve a cookie or a beer depending on your age. Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed. I'm going to include here a few links to other threads that I believe are relevant and catagorize them by the people who wrote them.
BSN Threads
A0170:
- Discussion of how many Reapers there are (includes poll)
- Why the Codex says defeating the Reapers conventionally is impossible
a.m.p.:
- Discussion of how many Reapers there are
- FTL collisions
- Distances between systems/relays in the galaxy
MyChemicalBromance:
- Spacefaring without mass relays
- Discussion of technological improvements that may be within our reach
Codex/Wiki Links:
(It'll take me some time to compile these but I'll update when I do; sorry - but for now I hope you take my word that I've been faithful to sources when I talk about them)
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There are a lot of unknowns here. In making guesses/approximations, I've tried to repeatedly inflate the numbers as much as possible for the Allied Fleet and be as conservative as possible about Reapers. I disregarded destroyers/cruisers and occuli/fighters because that would have been much too complicated, I think.
I know the numbers are open to interpetation. But what I was trying to show was that even with the most liberal interpretations, we still cannot defeat the Reapers. If the Reapers are truly not morons, then the Crucible really is the only hope. Perhaps the writers wrote themselves into a wall in that case.
This is not to say that it wouldn't be more poetic to have conventional victory versus the Crucible or vice versa seeing as the Crucible is a symbolic manifestation of organic defiance throughout all the cycles. That's a judgement that I view to be opinion and don't think it'd be fair to make a case in this OP, though I will happily discuss my opinion in subsequent posts.
I know I may not be 100% right. I welcome feedback, discussion, and criticism in any form.
Cheers.
Modifié par JShepppp, 02 juillet 2012 - 02:56 .
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