249 réponses à ce sujet

[MattFini]

JabberJim wrote...

I wanted a main Reaper Mother ship. One with a central brain Shepard has to infiltrate to disable in order to take out the entire Reaper armada. An epic battle. A tried and true intergalactic, against impossible odds kind of ending.

Not red, green, blue

Cliched, yes, but I was hoping for something along this, too.

And it's no more obvious and silly than what's in there now. 

And something like you described would've given the game an appropriate finish, instead of the hoirribly anticlimactic mess that is Priority: Earth now. 

[Sepharih]

Geneaux486 wrote...

The Angry One wrote...

Geneaux486 wrote...

Except that's never stated, nor implied.  There's no evidence of this in the conversation with the Catalyst strong enough to contradict what's already been established in conversations with Soveriegn and Harbinger.

"I control the Reapers. They are my solution."

I didn't see the words "mindless" or "toys" anywhere in that sentence.

Maybe they have "minds", but they're still definately toys.  Eitherway, they certainly aren't "each a nation, free and independant" anymore.

[The Angry One]

Optimystic_X wrote...


"He's too strong" is not the same as "we can't destroy one ship, ever." If you're not willing to agree on that then we're at an impasse.

HE WANTS TO RUN AWAY. You do not destroy things you are fleeing from.

Benezia said Saren was "too strong" too, does that mean "you can't kill him!"?

That was ME1. Where Shepard made the impossible possible.
In ME3, the Reapers are "too strong" and everybody gives up and puts their hopes in a deus ex machina.
That's my whole point.

The Inusannon were also "verbal history" weren't they?

No?

As for his speech, who knows? He was talking to a small child. Maybe they're not allowed in space yet. Maybe he was being whimsical. When your toddler asks if he can fly to Europe, you don't say "let's jump in a plane on your school break," do you?

a) The child seems to be at least 5 I'd say.
 If my 5 year old wanted to go to Europe and see Disneyland in France, I would talk about that, and maybe we can afford the trip blah blah blah. I would not say "Some day, you might be able to go to Europe! And in Europe, each country may have it's own population with their own stories!"

[His Name was HYR!!]

The Angry One wrote...

HYR 2.0 wrote...

Probably because they prioritized the major players (Earth, Palaven, and Thessia) before moving on to the primitives. No way in hell can the hanar hold off the Reapers in force, they most likely are not in force at Kahje. Ditto that the Salarians who are pretty weak contibutors to the war (250 EMS max).

Then why did they bother to indoctrinate a Hanar and try to shut Kahje's defences down?
Why are they harassing the Salarian borders?

They clearly WANT these planets, but do not have the numbers to take away from Earth, Palaven and Thessia.
If they had as many ships as you think, taking Kahje and Sur'kesh would be trivial.

The same reason they infiltrate through the Citadel and/or Alpha Relay rather than enter through FTL, because it gives them a tactical advantage. Indoctrinate the hanar, and Reapers can take Kahje without diverting force away from Earth/Palaven/Thessia. In the end, the jellyfish are probably not high priority until they've dealt with the much more threatening races: humans have ruined their plans, turians are the strongest miltary power, asari are the most advanced.

Once those three are out of the way, hanar and salarians are probably a piece of cake.

EDI's speculation on the Prothean cycle was just that, speculation. There were many species that integrated with the Protheans, one of them may have been used to construct a Sovereign-class Reaper. Even if every other cycle produces 0, you're talking around 40,000 of the ships that destroyed the Citadel fleets and DA-or-Alliance Fleet.

I have just demonstrated that your numbers are false. They have nowhere near this. If they did, Kahje would be toast regardless of what Shepard did.

Not unless the Sovereign-class Reapers are focused on the Big 3, which is what the story seems to indicate. Thessia was lost, Palaven was just about hopeless, and Shepard says "see [Palaven's] devestation? Double that for Earth."

Besides which, you think they'd really make the story about every planet being getting reaped with nothing the player can do about it?

[boardnfool86]

The Angry One wrote...

boardnfool86 wrote...

It is made clear at the beginning that conventional victory is impossible. You're fleet is getting smashed to pieces when you board the Citadel. You manage to defeat lone reapers, but fleets dominate space. Its mentioned on a few occassions that bogging the Reapers down in ground wars is the only way to slow them down. Space ships are slow and the Reapers can take them out with one direct hit. I wish William Wallace got to live at the end of Braveheart, but thats not how his story plays out. Conventional victory was ruled out in ME1, you may want to replay the series.

Also, @ OP, a Deus Ex Machina cannot be introduced at the beginning of a story. It has to be a contrived out of no where solution at the end.

No, it is not getting smashed to pieces. It is taking losses, but at max EMS even with the garbage tactics used by the fleet, they are still wrecking Reaper capital ships. The fleet is still organised and fighting by the time you make it to the Citadel.
Conventional victory if the Reapers are delayed and don't take the Citadel was never ruled out in ME1, you may wish to stop lying.

Stop lying? Soveriegn wrought havoc upon the Citadel fleet and the Alliance fleet. That was one Reaper. Now there are hundreds, maybe thousands. You have brought the entire might of the galaxy and are fighting a losing battle against a portion of the foe, their largest portion sure, but still just a portion. I am not lying, I am telling it how it is. At no point in the entire series is conventional victory thought to be possible. The only ray of hope is the Crucible, and every species comes to realize that for a reason. But I am sure you'll just stay angry and insist I am lying, even though Hackett points out what Soveriegn did in ME1 and also points out that is just 1 Reaper. At the end of 2 when you see the Reaper fleet, if that didn't look impossible I don't know what to tell you.

[RMP _]

A conventional victory would have been just silly based on the magnitude of the Reaper threat that had been built up in all the games and from what we've seen how fast they devestate whole planets.
More so, how could they find a way to finish the game? Even if the combined military forces destroyed all the reapers, what about more coming in from other areas of space. They needed something to make sure they were all dead everywhere.

[The Angry One]

HYR 2.0 wrote...

The same reason they infiltrate through the Citadel and/or Alpha Relay rather than enter through FTL, because it gives them a tactical advantage. Indoctrinate the hanar, and Reapers can take Kahje without diverting force away from Earth/Palaven/Thessia. In the end, the jellyfish are probably not high priority until they've dealt with the much more threatening races: humans have ruined their plans, turians are the strongest miltary power, asari are the most advanced.

Once those three are out of the way, hanar and salarians are probably a piece of cake.

If they had 40,000 capital ships, they wouldn't need these tactics. At all. Just steamroll absolutely everything.

Not unless the Sovereign-class Reapers are focused on the Big 3, which is what the story seems to indicate. Thessia was lost, Palaven was just about hopeless, and Shepard says "see [Palaven's] devestation? Double that for Earth."

Besides which, you think they'd really make the story about every planet being getting reaped with nothing the player can do about it?

Then they don't have those numbers. Period. Furthermore Earth and Thessia were lost, but even with the Turians being a primary target and a huge force sent against them, Palaven resisted.
Moreover, the only reason the Reapers were able to land on Palaven was because they "cheated" and used FTL to bypass the Turian fleets which were holding them at the mass relay.

[The Angry One]

boardnfool86 wrote...

Stop lying? Soveriegn wrought havoc upon the Citadel fleet and the Alliance fleet. That was one Reaper. Now there are hundreds, maybe thousands. You have brought the entire might of the galaxy and are fighting a losing battle against a portion of the foe, their largest portion sure, but still just a portion. I am not lying, I am telling it how it is. At no point in the entire series is conventional victory thought to be possible. The only ray of hope is the Crucible, and every species comes to realize that for a reason. But I am sure you'll just stay angry and insist I am lying, even though Hackett points out what Soveriegn did in ME1 and also points out that is just 1 Reaper. At the end of 2 when you see the Reaper fleet, if that didn't look impossible I don't know what to tell you.

Sovereign plus the Geth.

You know, the Geth. That are now on our side. Also, the fleets now have much improved technology. Stop pretending it's the same situation.

[FodoSatoru]

I think we have a problem with artistic integrity here. In ME1 they showed us that the Reapers are so powerful that only thing that entire galactic civilization is capable of doing is denying their existence and call them a myth, because if they could be real, then every suficiently advanced species is totally screwed. In ME3 they introduced low-tier Reapers ("destroyers" or should they be called "destroyees", because they exist to be blasted by the player) and degrade sense of Reaper-menace as well as contradict the lore a little (because the Reapers are supposed to be a form of species-preservation, so why create ones that are more easily destroyed, since there isn't any resoure shortage for the Reapers?). They also make the Reapers look stupid, because they don't sieze control of the Citadel immediately.
For me, possibility of conventional victory would be even more dissapointing than the actual endings. Now we can at least hope that Bioware will make some kind of sense from what was there previously. With possibility of conventional victory the entire concept of Reaper-threat would be ruined. They would be degraded even more to just very large dreadnoughts. And because of which species they would be defeated so shamefully? Humans, of coure. Just dandy. I miss that eldrich abomination vibe they had in ME1. And back then there was Sovereign voiced by same guy who voiced Lorik Qui'in. In my opinion, he is the best voice actor in the entire trilogy.

[someguy1231]

The problem is, the Reapers had been built up to be unstoppable and having no weaknesses. A single Reaper held its own against the entire Citadel fleet in the first game, and was only destroyed because it made a mistake. ME3 has a fleet of thousands, at least, invading the entire galaxy. A deus ex machina ending was pretty much inevitable (or the Reapers winning). There can be no "conventional" victory against a foe of that magnitude, at least not without abusing writing techniques.

[JabberJim]

Is it ever determined what exactly the Reapers (if they have one) command structure is.

They go after the dominate species leaving the lesser ones alone. They have coordinated attacks and the planets that pose the biggest threats. They overwhelm with pure force and numbers. But they never really explain how do they? If there is a power structure, a conventional victory is plausible. Like any war.

Javik stated the reason they lost was because all other races conformed to one philosophy the Prothean way. The reapers had to infiltrate the Prothean power structure with indoctrinated agents. So hearing that story, one could make the observation that the reapers are not all knowing... they too needed tactics and a plan to beat the Protheans. They had spies and agents just like any other powerful nation during a war.

[Pottumuusi]

TookYoCookies wrote...

Pottumuusi wrote...

patpatrik wrote...

Order to "fall back" was a war crime. Leave the Earth without fight in the beginning - another Hackett war crime. In times WW2 he would be executed immediately after brief war trial. If our forefathers fought so cowardly like this ****** from the future, they never would have won the Naz*s.

I think that this is actually known as strategy.

It was actually the Naz*s(god, I can't believe that's cencored) that had their officers executed for ordering their men to fall back. Remember how that turned out for them?

Strategy in certain instances... Someone doesnt know much about Rommel...

Staggered combative retreat, followed by rapid counter attacks. Rommels Bread n' Butter.

He did pretty well for himself... Germany probably wouldve won the war if Hitler listened to him.

Again, this WW2 comparison fails miserably. Rommel wasn't up against an enemy who is stupidly more advanced technologically and that vastly outnumbered him.


I also feel the need to point out that there is no way in hell that Germany could have won WW2, especially after USA chimed in.

The combined economic strength of the United States and the Soviet Union was just vastly superior to Germany's,
and they didn't have to keep huge occupied areas in check. Instead they were liberating(or "liberating" in the Russian's case) oppressed people from occupation.

Also, "Staggered combative retreat, followed by rapid counter attacks" is pretty far from what the Germans employed in Russia, which was more along the lines of "hold this line in the sand at all costs, you will not retreat even a single step".

Modifié par Pottumuusi, 03 mai 2012 - 04:36 .

[Sepharih]

someguy1231 wrote...
There can be no "conventional" victory against a foe of that magnitude, at least not without abusing writing techniques.

If I have a choice between a cliche done to death plot device like the crucible and a literal deus ex machina like the catalyst on one side, and a fair amount retconing and handwaving to bring the reapers powerlevels to a more manageable level (which they already did to an extent), then that's the easiest choice in the world for me.

[CapnManx]

The Angry One wrote...

CapnManx wrote...

Actually, we only know for a fact that this was what beat the Protheans; there's nothing to say that this is the first time the Reaper invasion didn't go according to plan. 

Do the Keeper sidequest in ME1. Their pattern is locked into a 50,000 year cycle like clockwork.

Besides, if you want to go by the ME1 interpretation of things, Sovereign alone needed an additional 'get out clause' before it could be beaten.  It was shrugging off the fire of an entire fleet before Saren's burned out corpse got shot to bits.

That was before the fleets had improved technology and thanix cannons reverse engineered from Sovereign itself.

The fact that the Keepers performed their task, doesn't mean nobody was ever able retake the Citadel, or override the Reaper control of the relays.  Nor does it imply that the Keepers were actually successful every single time; just that they recieved the signal and acted on it.  Some races might have been paranoid enough to have really obsessive security in the Citadel; and a serious distrust of the Keepers.

The Thanix is stated to provide cruiser level firepower to smaller vessels; that still puts it further down the food chain than the axial mass accelerator of a dreadnaught.

[AlexXIV]

Well yes. If I disregard the lore etc. that there is no way to beat them conventionally. But considering disregarding lore is a bad thing I think a deus ex was necessary. However I would have prefered to blow them out of the galaxy with force instead of having to listen to their stupid reasoning.

[Geneaux486]

Sepharih wrote...
Maybe they have "minds", but they're still definately toys.  Eitherway, they certainly aren't "each a nation, free and independant" anymore.

"We are each a nation, independent, free of all weakness" is the exact quote.  The Catalyst doesn't contradict this, and here's why:  Each Reaper houses "billions of organic minds", they do not rely on one another for survival, and believe themselves to be free of weakness.  Keep in mind, even in the first game, we know that these independent things are of one will.  They all agree on the exact same procedure every 50,000 years.  Countless individual minds, all in agreement on a singular goal.  With the introduction of the Catalyst, it becomes likely that such a will was imposed on each of them upon their creation.  If this is true, then the Catalyst does "control" the Reapers without them being mindless. 

[EricHVela]

I would have preferred something solid for solid speculation instead of something sloppy for nonsensical speculation.

Be it conventional or unconventional.

[ahandsomeshark]

Okay I agree fully conventional probably isn't possible.

The real question is whats the point of most of the game if we're going to be forced to the extreme? why did we even build a fleet? Did we really need anything other than the magical crucible? I don't have an issue with the crucible in itself, I have an issue with the way it's implemented. Other than bad writing/lack of time why wouldn't it make the most sense for the crucible to weaken the reapers in a way that made "conventional" (and I don't even like using the word because you can use conventional means in unconventional strategy) possible, albeit at a high cost?

The way it was handled IMO was just as lazy as if they had retconned the powerfulness of the reapers and allowed for conventional victory.

[The Angry One]

CapnManx wrote...

The fact that the Keepers performed their task, doesn't mean nobody was ever able retake the Citadel, or override the Reaper control of the relays.  Nor does it imply that the Keepers were actually successful every single time; just that they recieved the signal and acted on it.  Some races might have been paranoid enough to have really obsessive security in the Citadel; and a serious distrust of the Keepers.

So basically you're saying that the Reapers are unbelievable morons who use a tactic that has proven to be unreliable, and that knowing this, they still didn't give Sovereign a true plan B and expected him to wing it.

The Thanix is stated to provide cruiser level firepower to smaller vessels; that still puts it further down the food chain than the axial mass accelerator of a dreadnaught.

Except for, you know, the thanix cannons that are scaled up to dreadnought levels, like the Volus ship.
Also the fact that Thanix cannons are more effective against kinetic barriers by their very nature, being heat based weapons.

[AlexXIV]

Geneaux486 wrote...

Sepharih wrote...
Maybe they have "minds", but they're still definately toys.  Eitherway, they certainly aren't "each a nation, free and independant" anymore.

"We are each a nation, independent, free of all weakness" is the exact quote.  The Catalyst doesn't contradict this, and here's why:  Each Reaper houses "billions of organic minds", they do not rely on one another for survival, and believe themselves to be free of weakness.  Keep in mind, even in the first game, we know that these independent things are of one will.  They all agree on the exact same procedure every 50,000 years.  Countless individual minds, all in agreement on a singular goal.  With the introduction of the Catalyst, it becomes likely that such a will was imposed on each of them upon their creation.  If this is true, then the Catalyst does "control" the Reapers without them being mindless. 

I am pretty sure independence entails not being controlled by someone.

[PsyrenY]

The Angry One wrote...

HE WANTS TO RUN AWAY. You do not destroy things you are fleeing from.

This is the standard trope of the panicked and less experienced soldier being put at ease by the resolute commander.

When the resolute commander HIMSELF says "this is not possible" he means it.

The Angry One wrote... 
That was ME1. Where Shepard made the impossible possible.

You did that in ME3 too, you just needed the Crucible. Just like you needed the IFF in ME2 and the Conduit in ME1.

The Angry One wrote...
No?

Yes?

The Angry One wrote...
a) The child seems to be at least 5 I'd say.
 If my 5 year old wanted to go to Europe and see Disneyland in France, I would talk about that, and maybe we can afford the trip blah blah blah. I would not say "Some day, you might be able to go to Europe! And in Europe, each country may have it's own population with their own stories!"

"Someday, and you'll see all sorts of fantastic people there!" is a perfectly legitimate response to a 5-year-old, don't you agree? You're reading way too much into it.

[shurikenmanta]

Would have been a tad anticlimactic I would say. Being on top of the pack for at least 37 million years (more likely at least a billion) and then getting taken down by a fledgling society not even as up there as the last one they took down, because humans are special?

There was always going to be a macguffin, I'd known that since ME2.

[ahandsomeshark]

Geneaux486 wrote...

Sepharih wrote...
Maybe they have "minds", but they're still definately toys.  Eitherway, they certainly aren't "each a nation, free and independant" anymore.

"We are each a nation, independent, free of all weakness" is the exact quote.  The Catalyst doesn't contradict this, and here's why:  Each Reaper houses "billions of organic minds", they do not rely on one another for survival, and believe themselves to be free of weakness.  Keep in mind, even in the first game, we know that these independent things are of one will.  They all agree on the exact same procedure every 50,000 years.  Countless individual minds, all in agreement on a singular goal.  With the introduction of the Catalyst, it becomes likely that such a will was imposed on each of them upon their creation.  If this is true, then the Catalyst does "control" the Reapers without them being mindless. 

I don't think that means they are of one will. We know what Sovereign tells us but we don't know about the reapers as a whole. Or do you mean the countless individual minds inside one reaper?

[soulprovider]

HYR 2.0 wrote...

The Angry One wrote...

HYR 2.0 wrote...

Adding on to this, the Codex speculates that 1 Captial Ship is created every cycle. Let's say this is true...

Earth is 4.1 billion years old. A Reaper cycle occurs, supposedly, every 50,000 years. 4.1 bil / 50 k = 82,000 Captial Ships. And, Earth is not likely even the oldest planet in the ME universe either...

Yeah, I wouldn't count on conventional victory any time soon.

And yet, the Reapers do not have the numbers to take Kahje if it's orbital defences are up, overrun Salarian defences or destroy the Turian's major fuel refinery.

The Reapers don't have anywhere near these numbers. Hell, the Prothean cycle was a dud cycle for them, no capital ships at all.

Probably because they prioritized the major players (Earth, Palaven, and Thessia) before moving on to the primitives. No way in hell can the hanar hold off the Reapers in force, they most likely are not in force at Kahje. Ditto that the Salarians who are pretty weak contibutors to the war (250 EMS max).

EDI's speculation on the Prothean cycle was just that, speculation. There were many species that integrated with the Protheans, one of them may have been used to construct a Sovereign-class Reaper. Even if every other cycle produces 0, you're talking around 40,000 of the ships that destroyed the Citadel fleets and DA-or-Alliance Fleet.

I think your forgetting one very large story aspect from the first game, the citadel was a trap, sovereign activated the citadel in previous cycles by sending a signal to the citadel which caused the keepers to activate the citadel relay as well as shutting down communicattions. Once they gaineed control of the citadel they shut down the mass relays to all but themselves so the previous cycles could not unite their fleets, if the reapers had 40k ships they would not have needed to do this they could have just overwhelmed the previous cycles  but instead they slowly took one world at a time according to vigil on ilos, the onyl reason they didn't do that this time was because of the protheans altering the keepers signals so that sovereign could not activate the citadel relays and let the reapers in to destroy the nerve center so they needed to attack through semi-conventianal means. Also the timeline in ME3 is not entirly correct, the codex entry states that it would take a decade for the reapers to harvest all of humanity but the prothean VI states quite simply at the end of the cerberus final mission that the reapers have almost completed their harvest of the galaxy and that shepard should prepare for leaving information behind for the next cycle so they are prepared. So its safe to assume that if we go by the codex that the reaper war has  taken at minimum ten years but its very difficult to ascertain what the actual time line is regarding that, knowing this its also puts into perspective that the reapers were taking out one race at a time while shepard was trying to unify the galaxy. But I will repeat it is very difficult to ascertain what the actual timeline is in ME3 because there seems to be a disconnect between the codex and the game itself. 

[Geneaux486]

AlexXIV wrote...

Geneaux486 wrote...

Sepharih wrote...
Maybe they have "minds", but they're still definately toys.  Eitherway, they certainly aren't "each a nation, free and independant" anymore.

"We are each a nation, independent, free of all weakness" is the exact quote.  The Catalyst doesn't contradict this, and here's why:  Each Reaper houses "billions of organic minds", they do not rely on one another for survival, and believe themselves to be free of weakness.  Keep in mind, even in the first game, we know that these independent things are of one will.  They all agree on the exact same procedure every 50,000 years.  Countless individual minds, all in agreement on a singular goal.  With the introduction of the Catalyst, it becomes likely that such a will was imposed on each of them upon their creation.  If this is true, then the Catalyst does "control" the Reapers without them being mindless. 

I am pretty sure independence entails not being controlled by someone.

Legion explains it in Mass Effect 2.  By independent, Soveriegn meant that they were not dependent on one another, unlike the Geth, who are interdependent.  Control or lackthereof is irrelevant in that sense.  It's a matter of "will harming one directly harm the others?"  In the case of the Geth, the answer is "yes", but in the case of the Reapers, the answer is "no".

Modifié par Geneaux486, 03 mai 2012 - 04:40 .