246 réponses à ce sujet

[Bocks]

I don't agree with your estimate of the Reaper numbers. Assuming that Sovereign wasn't kidding, here is my calculation;

Let's say that for every 100~ km^2 of Earth's surface there's a Reaper. Now, Earth's land surface area is 150,000,000 km^2. This gives us a total of 1,500,000 Reapers on Earth alone.

What we have to do now is multiply this number per occupied worlds. So let's see...

Earth
Khar'Shan
Sur'Kesh
Thessia
Palaven
Dekuuna
Kahje
Tuchanka
Rannoch (note that I'm not referring to how many there are on the planets in-game, but rather how many there CAN be)

This gives us a total of about 13,500,000 Reapers. Add another 500,000 to take colonies into account and you've got about 14,000,000 Reapers. This estimate is mostly based on Earth's size, and the error in it is possibly very large, but this is just a rough idea of how many Reapers there are or there can be in the galaxy. I think you all underestimate their numbers a bit too much.

EDIT: Ah, forgot the Volus homeworld, Irune. That makes 15,500,000 Reapers.

Modifié par Bocks, 07 mai 2012 - 10:37 .

[Elyiia]

Bocks wrote...

I don't agree with your estimate of the Reaper numbers. Assuming that Sovereign wasn't kidding, here is my calculation;

Let's say that for every 100~ km^2 of Earth's surface there's a Reaper. Now, Earth's land surface area is 150,000,000 km^2. This gives us a total of 1,500,000 Reapers on Earth alone.

What we have to do now is multiply this number per occupied worlds. So let's see...

Earth
Khar'Shan
Sur'Kesh
Thessia
Palaven
Dekuuna
Kahje
Tuchanka
Rannoch (note that I'm not referring to how many there are on the planets in-game, but rather how many there CAN be)

This gives us a total of about 13,500,000 Reapers. Add another 500,000 to take colonies into account and you've got about 14,000,000 Reapers. This estimate is mostly based on Earth's size, and the error in it is possibly very large, but this is just a rough idea of how many Reapers there are or there can be in the galaxy. I think you all underestimate their numbers a bit too much.

EDIT: Ah, forgot the Volus homeworld, Irune. That makes 15,500,000 Reapers.

Dude, I hope you're kidding. The only way this would work if they were made out of paper.

Modifié par Elyiia, 07 mai 2012 - 11:05 .

[Noelemahc]

Let's say that for every 100~ km^2 of Earth's surface there's a Reaper.

Let's ask you this simple question: Why? What reason do you base this on? Do the Reapers really need to conquer the Mariana Trench and dominate the Cape of Queen Maud? Enslave Terra del Fuego and obliterate the population of Niue? (OK, maybe they should do that last one, those snobby bastards deserve it, being the first free-Wi-Fi covered country in the world) All several thousand of them?

[Bocks]

Noelemahc wrote...

Let's say that for every 100~ km^2 of Earth's surface there's a Reaper.

Let's ask you this simple question: Why? What reason do you base this on? Do the Reapers really need to conquer the Mariana Trench and dominate the Cape of Queen Maud? Enslave Terra del Fuego and obliterate the population of Niue? (OK, maybe they should do that last one, those snobby bastards deserve it, being the first free-Wi-Fi covered country in the world) All several thousand of them?

I don't see why Reapers wouldn't take those places. There's human beings there, so I'd guess the Reapers would try to harvest them. I don't get the point you're trying to make here.

Furthermore, this is based on Sovereign's speech and on Earth's LAND surface area.

[Jayleia]

Bocks wrote...

I don't agree with your estimate of the Reaper numbers. Assuming that Sovereign wasn't kidding, here is my calculation;

Let's say that for every 100~ km^2 of Earth's surface there's a Reaper. Now, Earth's land surface area is 150,000,000 km^2. This gives us a total of 1,500,000 Reapers on Earth alone.

What we have to do now is multiply this number per occupied worlds. So let's see...

Earth
Khar'Shan
Sur'Kesh
Thessia
Palaven
Dekuuna
Kahje
Tuchanka
Rannoch (note that I'm not referring to how many there are on the planets in-game, but rather how many there CAN be)

This gives us a total of about 13,500,000 Reapers. Add another 500,000 to take colonies into account and you've got about 14,000,000 Reapers. This estimate is mostly based on Earth's size, and the error in it is possibly very large, but this is just a rough idea of how many Reapers there are or there can be in the galaxy. I think you all underestimate their numbers a bit too much.

EDIT: Ah, forgot the Volus homeworld, Irune. That makes 15,500,000 Reapers.

OK, so not only do they outnumber our fleets 238,461:1 (Treaty of Farixen), they are capable of more maneuverability, stronger shields, they have indoctrinated troops everywhere...no, they're CLEARLY not that numerous or else they wouldn't have needed Sovereign back in ME1 or the Collectors in ME2, they would have just flown in and ROFLStomped us.

[Noelemahc]

I don't see why Reapers wouldn't take those places. There's human beings there, so I'd guess the Reapers would try to harvest them. I don't get the point you're trying to make here.

Anderson repeatedly states that the Reapers have only landed in heavily populated areas. Which, by human standards, is any city with a population of over 1 million people. Of all the places I've listed, only one has a permanent population over one thousand people. Urth is covered with oceans for the most part. It's illogical to assume the Reapers are sprinkled evenly (or, in fact, logically) across its surface, when most of it not only doesn't have that much humans on it, probably isn't very comfy for landing (f.e. the Everest, the Tian Sian mountain range, the Rockies, the Andes, etc) or isn't practical for harvesting (the Arctic, the Antarctic, Sahara, Death Valley, Greenland, any bit of surface that don't got dry land on it, etc.). Which means that if Reapers landed in these volumes on Urth, half of them would probably drown or freeze without having attained anything. Do you REALLY think they're as dumb as locusts or what?

[Bocks]

Noelemahc wrote...

I don't see why Reapers wouldn't take those places. There's human beings there, so I'd guess the Reapers would try to harvest them. I don't get the point you're trying to make here.

Anderson repeatedly states that the Reapers have only landed in heavily populated areas. Which, by human standards, is any city with a population of over 1 million people. Of all the places I've listed, only one has a permanent population over one thousand people. Urth is covered with oceans for the most part. It's illogical to assume the Reapers are sprinkled evenly (or, in fact, logically) across its surface, when most of it not only doesn't have that much humans on it, probably isn't very comfy for landing (f.e. the Everest, the Tian Sian mountain range, the Rockies, the Andes, etc) or isn't practical for harvesting (the Arctic, the Antarctic, Sahara, Death Valley, Greenland, any bit of surface that don't got dry land on it, etc.). Which means that if Reapers landed in these volumes on Urth, half of them would probably drown or freeze without having attained anything. Do you REALLY think they're as dumb as locusts or what?

I'm more astounded by the fact that you think Reapers can drown or freeze.

Regardless, this is an estimate based on Sovereign's words. Take it or leave it, but it's my headcanon.

[a.m.p]

@SaleemRa
I’m not sure I understand you right. You want us to give you an in-universe example of how the reapers can be beaten by the united galaxy? There is no such example, nor is there an example of how the reapers can’t be beaten by the united galaxy, because the reapers never faced the united galaxy before. That is the whole point of the trilogy. This is happening for the first time since the cycles began. No precedents.
All we know is that there are a bunch of reapers (between three hundred and a few thousand sov-class by my estimate, and even that’s stretching, the more there are the stupider we have to assume they are) there is a bunch of allied fleets and individual reapers can be killed. And there is lore that allows to kill them much easier. That’s it.

About the reapers not needing the citadel. I think Raynulf covered most of the points, I’ll just reiterate one: Okay. Assuming the mechanism was destroyed or completely dismantled. The unknowable space cyborg gods can’t make a new one and install it where the old one was? It is their own tech that allows them to not take losses while reaping. There simply is no way to intelligently explain why reapers powerful enough to take the citadel did not take the citadel.

In fact, if the writers really wanted to trash the plot of ME1, there is one way to do it without insulting the audience’s intelligence. Blow up the citadel. At the beginning of the game. Drop it into a black hole, destroy it in such a way that to restore its full functionality the reapers would have to build a new one. Then reaping before rebuilding it would be justified.

Also,

Warrior Craess wrote…
if at the end of the war there are only a few million of each species, but all the reapers are dead, then that is a win. talk about bitter sweat.

This. Why do some people constantly assume a conventional victory would be an easy way out and would undermine reapers/current endings/themes of the series? There is a price to it, and unlike the price of our given endings, it is not arbitrary, it logically follows from the premise. The war does not stop at Earth, it continues. More casualties, more ravaged planets. The reapers may fight to the last space squid or retreat at some point, but there will never be any kind of certainty that all are gone and will never come back. And that is the best case scenario. If purely for drama’s sake the option also required to sacrifice Shepard/crew/both I’m pretty sure most of the people who want that option would still take it. And for those who wouldn’t its very existence would give meaning to the current options and actually make them a choice.

@Bocks
About reaper numbers. Just to clear this up, by sovereign's words you mean "our numbers will darken the sky of every world"?
Because that is not a numerical estimate. That is a big fat spacesquid being a big fat spacesquid.

[B-Ri.hoosier]

TL; DR The Crucible was a lazy macguffin device pulled straight out of the ME3 writers' ass.

[Noelemahc]

I'm more astounded by the fact that you think Reapers can drown or freeze.

Regardless, this is an estimate based on Sovereign's words. Take it or leave it, but it's my headcanon.

Anyone can drown or freeze, it's just a matter of how much water you need or how close to absolute zero you'll have to get. People tend to forget that "spaceworthy" isn't the same as "resistant to being crushed into a gnat because you just passed the ten atmo pressure point" or "resistant to cold-induced metal fatigue". (another reason to love Farscape, it abuses that fact to hell and beyond)

Don't forget, the MEverse doesn't have any unobtainium of any form in it whatsoever, be it adamantium, cavorite or ytterbi-- oh, wait, that last one's real despite the funny name.

I have no issues with your headcanon, just... well, mine's different. Sorry.

[incinerator950]

Noelemahc wrote...

I'm more astounded by the fact that you think Reapers can drown or freeze.

Regardless, this is an estimate based on Sovereign's words. Take it or leave it, but it's my headcanon.

Anyone can drown or freeze, it's just a matter of how much water you need or how close to absolute zero you'll have to get. People tend to forget that "spaceworthy" isn't the same as "resistant to being crushed into a gnat because you just passed the ten atmo pressure point" or "resistant to cold-induced metal fatigue". (another reason to love Farscape, it abuses that fact to hell and beyond)

Don't forget, the MEverse doesn't have any unobtainium of any form in it whatsoever, be it adamantium, cavorite or ytterbi-- oh, wait, that last one's real despite the funny name.

I have no issues with your headcanon, just... well, mine's different. Sorry.

...You lost me.  Reapers are Techno-Organic Constructs, mainly they're machines though.  They're not going to worry about Freezing or Drowning unless the elements ruptures their Hull, in which case they'll probably have more to worry about.

[Sarcastic Tasha]

JShepppp wrote...


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.

Not with that attitude.

[richard_rider]

B-Ri.hoosier wrote...

TL; DR The Crucible was a lazy macguffin device pulled straight out of the ME3 writers' ass.

They wrote themselves into a hole, and instead of slowing digging themselves out, they pulled this.

[Noelemahc]

They're not going to worry about Freezing or Drowning unless the elements ruptures their Hull, in which case they'll probably have more to worry about.

That wasn't the point of my post, but I'll reply anyways -- my bad, as in Russian, there's no significant difference between "sinking" (going down to the bottom of the sea not of your own volition but under gravitational pull), "drowning" for organics (i.e. oops, your lungs full of water, you die of suffocation) and "drowning" for anyone (oops, you're so deep you cannot get back out under your own power, closely related to sinking), they're all the same word (but we do have a whole separate one for the "lungs full of water" type of drowning, so whatever) so I wasn't clear enough, sorry. We know nothing of Reaper propulsion and whether it will work reliably underwater, if at all, so if one was to land in the Pacific, it might be unrecoverably lost there for all we know. (Fast forward a few years, make sidequest based off the plot of the movie Sphere?)

And by freezing I explicitly meant elements damaging the hull and/or internal mechanisms, not frostbite or an unpleasant sensation of chill.

The point of the post, btw, was to point out how insane it is to suggest that Reapers will try to Reap something in the Mariana Trench, thereby trying to point out how weird it is to suggest that there should be a Reaper allocated per every 100 sq. km. of Urth's surface. It just got a little out of hand, sorry.

Modifié par Noelemahc, 08 mai 2012 - 05:34 .

[JShepppp]

Sorry guys for being absent for so long, I'm just going to pop in here and add some of my thoughts before I hop off again. Amazing ideas here. I just wanted to add to a few things (if the discussion is still alive).

(1) REAPER NUMBERS: This is an area of huge contention and speculation. I just took the smallest numerical estimate for the purpose of showing they can't be beaten. If you take any number greater (e.g. all other options) then it follows that the Reapers still can't be beaten.

(2) ALLIED FLEET NUMBERS: I took the highest numbers here. The number 170 is clearly inflated because it implies the Quarians are the strongest military force in the galaxy over even the Turians.

(3) DESTROYERS, CRUISERS, AND OTHER SMALLER SHIPS: Too much variation here for me to get a basis in numbers. But they also have to be relative to each other; that is, they would only become relevant if there are more cruisers than destroyers or vice versa because they effectively match each other 1-to-1 according to the Codex.

(4) ANTIMATTER WEAPONS: It could be possible; Raynulf in particular provided a compelling link. I thought antimatter was collected at stars but I was wrong; it is actually produced. We know the amount needed to fuel ships is small (100% conversion rate into energy) so the only question is if enough can be produced.

(5) FTL TORPEDOES: Besides being unable to be detected (but maybe they can - see next point), they could also be very devastating. But we don't know by how much. It could be by not that much in which case it might be better to save eezo and whatnot and use old-fashioned weapons, so to speak. You cannot create more energy out of nothing, so to speak. But we know massive eezo cores can explode spectacularly like the Alpha Relay. This means regardless of speed, eezo itself could be a contributing and devastating factor. But eezo is both expensive and rare (the former may not be applicable in desperate Reaper times) and we don't know how much would be needed to have an effective explosion.

(6) REAPER JAMMING TECHNOLOGY: For any weapon to fire in ME, we must be able to detect where the Reapers are in empty space. I don't know what role the atmosphere played on Rannoch, but if a single, lone Destroyer can jam the entire Quarian Fleet, who knows what a group of Reapers can do? The thing is every weapon - "conventional", antimatter, even FTL - needs to be fired based on sensors that obtain their information at light speed. The Reapers may be able to "piggyback"and fool the signals (they're capable of immense computer/AI/hacking stuff) or just jam the signals so that people would have to blind fire. Or they could be even smarter and move beyond organics' weapon range and then fire, always "retreating" out of weapons range and stuff. The latter brings me to my next point.

(7) REAPER WEAPONS RANGE: This is explicltly stated to be greater than our weapons range. What if, even if we come up with one-shot-kill-Reaper weapons, they just backtrack out of range? Surely they're not so stupid as to get cornered; as soon as organics relay into the system, they know instantaneously via instantaneous communication and the Catalyst (or just leave a "scout" Reaper) and can disperse from being around the planet such that they won't have a back to their walls (or "cliff"with gravity, technically speaking). They could troll all combat scenarios by firing beyond range.

(8) ON THE NATURE OF NEW, POWEFUL WEAPONS: Just a thought. If we get powerful weapons that can one-shot Reapers (remember, we can 4-shot them already) or otherwise do great, massive, hitherto-never-before-seen damage, to what extent would that be related to a deus ex machinima? Or would it simply be better because it may give the rallying of the different fleets more meaning?

(9) MORON PREMISE: With instantaneous communication, if the Reapers are not morons, then they should be able to adapt to any situation. I'll give a few examples.

Kill a lone Reaper or overwhelm a small group? They should move in packs big enough to obliterate anyone, even if it's slower (they're patient).

Get destroyed by antimatter or FTL torpedo? Get out of weapons range and/or use jamming technology.

Relay destroyed? Use instantaneous communication to FTL out of system.

Crucible coming along but surrounded by fleet? Shoot from beyond-weapons-range-of-organics distance through the "gap"in the fleet (surely the fleet cannot cover every square kilometer completely of the Crucible).

Overwhelmed by fighters and/or dreadnought rounds for some reason (small Reaper group versus entire fleet)? Send in occuli for kamikaze runs.

Overwhelmed against ALL possible odds? FTL out and come back with reinforcements.

Nobody has to try to refute every possible point here (formatting horrors), and I'm sure I even made some leaps of faith in what I said above, but just thoughts I'd like to respectfully add. I still think any conventional victory requires that, unfortunately, the Reapers be somewhat moronic.

[Javo2357]

wow great read OP, very concise, thx!

[JoJohnson117]

If getting all the race together was all about building the Crucible than it sure seemed like a waste of time. I don't understand why the Reapers didn't send their indocrinated to modify the citadel and retreat into dark space while doing it. When they would come back they could annihilate the entire galaxy.

[JShepppp]

Due to me posting this everywhere, I thought I'd bump it and change the title as it's more applicable to the refusal ending (a lot of conventional victory threads have been coming up and I've basically been copy-pasting everywhere).

The OP is unedited from a month or so ago.

One thing not mentioned in the OP is Reaper jamming technology as experienced on Rannoch.

[JShepppp]

So I take it no thoughts?

[Palidane]

Great Read OP. Im gonna bump this, maybe it'll help shut up some Refuse supporters.

[JShepppp]

Palidane wrote...

Great Read OP. Im gonna bump this, maybe it'll help shut up some Refuse supporters.

Lol thanks. I have nothing against the Refuse supporters, though. I think the ending is poetic. I just don't think a conventional victory is possible, given the info we have.

[JShepppp]

I've recently been reposting this all over the forums so I am bumping. But I swear this will be my last self-bump for laziness; any more and I'm sure it would be an infraction of site rules or something.