138 réponses à ce sujet

[Dr. Megaverse]

AlanC9 wrote...

Dr. Megaverse wrote...

Astartes Marine wrote...

They should have remained like Freespace's Shivans...

You sir, have made my day with this epic reference.

Yeah,  the series that just stopped with no resolution of anything. Great model.

I think the characterization your making of FS is unfair.  The writers didn't stop producing FS content to move on to new projects, Volition and Interplay straight up went out of business.  Then they opened up the FS universe and made it open source so anyone could produce what they saw fit as they were incapable of doing it due to you, know being paid anymore.  You're free to have whatever opinion you wish, just know I disagree with the generalization that the model was inadquete as implied by your "tone".

[Ticonderoga117]

The Night Mammoth wrote...

Ah nostalgia.

Remember when the Reapers were this:

https://encrypted-tb...0TwAEp9yPB8jOgQ





And not this:



As in, menacing, mysterious, moderately worthy antagonists to the series, and not just the pawns of an obviously flawed non-character shoe-horned in to give ten seconds to midnight exposition on what the hell any of it was all about?

I miss those times.

I miss those times too. Especially when both Sovereign and Harby told me I couldn't understand why they do what they do. Then GlowBoy there manages to cover it in 13 lines of dialogue.

[MassivelyEffective0730]

The given backstory to the Reapers was really bad.

A means to stop a literal conflict between organics and synthetics. It totally ruined them. And Star Jar was just... terrible.

I'd have been fine with them being left unexplained.

If they did have to explain the Reapers though, they should have done this (my subjective opinion):

A post-singularity civilization (ie. Leviathan) that has, somewhere down the line been corrupted by the technology they possess. Combining the machine logic and order of the Reapers machine body with the incredible ego and arrogance of the Leviathans, the Reapers become beings that believe they are the pinnacle of existence and evolution. All life-forms are lesser beings that pollute the majesty of the Reapers with their very existence. So the Reapers resolve to cleanse the chaos with their twisted vision of order. But the Reapers are not without 'mercy'. They forcefully harvest other races and create new Reapers from their remains to give them the knowledge to appreciate their ordered perfection.

How does that sound?

[MrFob]

I don't think the problem was that an explanation was offered. The main problems were
1) that the reapers motivations are based on a concept that was already discussed, a conflict that was already resolved in the storyline. Therefore it felt like a redundant reiteration and the fact that we couldn't even bring the previous situation (the Geth and the Quarians of course) into the discussion didn't help either.
2) that the execution was very poorly done, left a lot of open questions and even introduced new ones rather than tying all the previous plot lines together. Logical fallacies and ignorance of previously gained information doesn't exactly lend credibility to an argument that seems mute in the first place.

I do believe that the motivations of the reapers, their background and even their origins ahd a lot of potential which sadly went untapped.
I also believe that in the end, the story is diminished by not explaining the reapers. It makes the whole scenario reminiscent of Starship Troopers: Who cares about learning the background of a situation, let's just kick our enemy into the muck without asking any questions. I never liked vigil's sentence "Your salvation lies in stopping them, not in understanding them." for that very reason. I don't only like stories for their content but also for the message that is behind that content and I don't like the message behind just killing off the enemy without even trying to understand them. Of course, the original ME3 endings do have a message that is even worse, IMO but that's a different debate and has been covered more than enough in the past year.

[Eterna]

DinoSteve wrote...

The mistake wasn't in trying to explain them it was the ridiculous explanation we were given for them.

No explanation would have been good enough for everyone. Bioware effectively wrote themselves into a corner with the Reapers. Anything they would come up with would have ended up being just as cheesy as what we got because with an enemy as all knowing and all powerful as the Reapers, no backstory could do them justice. 

I'm for the most part satisfied with the reasoning behind their existence. It is faulty no doubt, but it is coherant enough that I can overlook the obvious faults. 

Modifié par Eterna5, 19 mars 2013 - 03:03 .

[MassivelyEffective0730]

Eterna5 wrote...

DinoSteve wrote...

The mistake wasn't in trying to explain them it was the ridiculous explanation we were given for them.

No explanation would have been good enough for everyone. Bioware effectively wrote themselves into a corner with the Reapers. Anything they would come up with would have ended up being just as cheesy as what we got because with an enemy as all knowing and all powerful as the Reapers, no backstory could do them justice. 

I'm for the most part satisfied with the reasoning behind their existence. It is faulty no doubt, but it is coherant enough that I can overlook the obvious faults. 

Honestly, I think my idea is kind of good. 

[AlanC9]

Dr. Megaverse wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...
Yeah,  the series that just stopped with no resolution of anything. Great model.

I think the characterization your making of FS is unfair.  The writers didn't stop producing FS content to move on to new projects, Volition and Interplay straight up went out of business.  Then they opened up the FS universe and made it open source so anyone could produce what they saw fit as they were incapable of doing it due to you, know being paid anymore.  You're free to have whatever opinion you wish, just know I disagree with the generalization that the model was inadquete as implied by your "tone".

As you say, they went out of business and never finished the series. If Bio had gone out of business after ME2 we'd be in pretty much the same place with the Reapers as we are with the Shivans.

I thought it was obvious that my use of "model" there was ironic; no, they didn't plan to go out of business and leave the series unfinished. But that's where we ended up. I don't think the incompleteless of FS is something Bio should have emulated.

Modifié par AlanC9, 19 mars 2013 - 03:22 .

[CaptainCommander]

DecCylonus wrote...

I think an ending without an explanation would have been unsatisfying.Villains with no motivation are the things of children's cartoons. ME deserved better than that. I enjoyed the mystery for two games, but I wouldn't want to win the war and not understand what I had fought.

I don't know a theme that has existed in all ME games is the unknown and it ties with Humans being the newest race to join the Citadel. ME1 is about finding the Prothean's relics and finding out who this giant ship is. ME2 you have these unseen Collectors and you go on a search to find them. ME3 starts out with the unknown Crucible and you continue with an unknown victory type feel (pulling hairs for ME3).

ME is about the unknown. And the Reapers to me symbolised that! They were humanities fears of the unknown galaxy confronting them and we had to defeat them. And you could easily add a conversation with Harbinger in ME3 where you don't get an explanation of motives and creation but rather an understanding of the Reapers. Say Harbinger tells you that they require the technology and resources of the cycles to survive in between the cycles. Or even have Harbinger say we collect the knowledge of the galaxy and preserve it for what ever reason that could be ME4. 

But the Reapers should never had been these apex race's answer to trying to stop a conflict. In Leviathan Shepard even says something along the lines of you made the same mistakes as the races you tried to protect and Leviathan just answers "You can't understand us!". Its something you say to an annoying child.

Should of stayed a mystery and you would have positive speculation on this board instead of everyone trying to fix the game with collective head-canon.

[Helios969]

I was cool with it. I felt they needed to explain why the genocidal machines resembled giant crustaceans. I imagine had there not been some explanation given that there'd be a bunch of threads complaining of the lack of explanation...and mass speculations, of course.

[DecCylonus]

tickle267 wrote...

DecCylonus wrote...

I think an ending without an explanation would have been unsatisfying.Villains with no motivation are the things of children's cartoons. ME deserved better than that. I enjoyed the mystery for two games, but I wouldn't want to win the war and not understand what I had fought.

fair point but there isn't really any explanation that maintains the mystery and fear they cause, can you think of one?

No, and I didn't want one. I viewed the Mass Effect as a combination of sci fi and military fiction, rather than sci fi / horror. In a war, you need to understand your enemy to beat them, or at least it helps a lot. Understanding also helps morale: monsters are less scary when you understand them. Because of my view, I wanted to know why the Reapers did what they did.

Also, I don't think knowing their motivations makes them less scary or evil. Their logic was twisted so badly that you can say they were incomprehensible. They have the power to enforce their vision of galactic order, which makes them plenty scary. They are less scary than the unknown we were left with when the credits rolled on ME1, but I don't think that could or should have been maintained when the trilogy concluded.

[DecCylonus]

Knight of Dane wrote...

DecCylonus wrote...

I think an ending without an explanation would have been unsatisfying.Villains with no motivation are the things of children's cartoons. ME deserved better than that. I enjoyed the mystery for two games, but I wouldn't want to win the war and not understand what I had fought.

So you are satisfied with what you got?

Generally, but not 100%. I thought some things could have been handled better. Overall the explanation is what I expected. The danger of rogue AI's has been a major theme of the series. I suspected since ME1 that there was more to the Reapers' harvesting than just hatred of organics. In my opinion the ending fits well within sci fi conventions. It wasn't particularly original, but there was nothing bad about the explanation itself. I had felt since ME1 that the ending would not be completely happy, so the rest of it didn't bother me either.

[Vortex13]

I thought the explanation in ME 2 was all that we needed. The Reapers harvest us because we are food/a means for reproduction. I mean if the galaxy is nothing but a giant slaughter house and we're the cows, what possible motivation would the Reapers need beyond: "We eat you."

We don't give the cows IRL a convoluted reason about how we are killing them in order to save them, we eat them because we are more powerful and cows taste good.

Food/Reproduction these are two very simple easily digestible motivations that at the same time still allow the Reapers to maintain their sense of awe inspiring dread. I would have been perfectly fine with this as a Reaper motivation.

-SPOILERS AHEAD-

This is pretty much how the Brethren Moons are in Dead Space, they have no grand scheme in place that works for our benefit. Everything they do; the promise of limitless energy from the Markers, the promise of transcendence into the afterlife; all of it is a deception, a trap placed to allow them to consume us.

I enjoyed the Awakening DLC, true it ended on a cliff hanger, but the presentation of the Brethren Moons as this timeless force, and their "indoctrination" of Isaac and Carver was a lot more intimidating (IMO) then the Reapers were.

"They are hungry. They are coming."

-SPOILERS END-

A complex motivation that requires a fifteen minute monologue to explain does not equal a deep and engaging character. The same is true that a simple motivation does not necessarily equal a compelling villain, but it is much easier to pull off, and if done poorly, does not cause as much damage as a complex motivation.

[Apocaleepse360]

Yep. Just about every piece of information we get on the Reapers in ME3 contradicts everything that Sovereign told us in ME1. Preserving us? Oh, I'm sorry. I was under the impression that you lot had come to destroy us, since that's pretty much what Sovereign said. Sentient machines? Nah. Now you're all controlled by a weird holographic kid. Speaking of which, BioWare STILL hasn't answered why the ****ing thing looks like the kid from the first mission!

Modifié par Apocaleepse360, 19 mars 2013 - 01:11 .

[dr888]

jasonxxsatanna wrote...

I think the crucible should have turn out to be the blue prints for the building an Alliance Reaper that would have went on to be our secret weapon against the actual reapers.....I thought this might happen and would pull Kasumi's graybox plot as a tie in......but back then I guess I was just wishing for something grande......

Hi
For me ME3 endings even with EC only is barely acceptable only  if we disregard ME1 and 2 - so only for new players, not knowing full story.

So let me expand on this good idea -Crucible being a tool (shipyard+power source?) to creation of a  Super Reaper, with Shepard's soul as a Catalyst to control it !(no pun intended) .  Shepard already has unique ability to understand Prothean beacons (we could say is compatible ) and has powerfull will. If someone created Reaper "ships" to "store" essence of other lifeforms why not repeat this technological achiement (I refer to their firepower, durability etc) - Crucible could be a prototype to build on, a plan with data gathered  thorough endless cycles, allowing to match Reaper power.

Just imagine : it could be finished only using knowledge from detroyed/saved Reaper base (from ME2) - and    Shepard could "pilot" Super Reaper which - controlled by free, powerfull will , could be capable  not only to stop (medium EMS) but to defeat Reapers  (with high enough EMS ): destroy or spare them -based on Paragon/Renegade rating or players choice  ; or he would die trying, problably giving chancefor nex cycle - with low EMS.- wo even less succesfull players could be safisfied and ecouraged to play once again !

This Reaper would not haveto  look like "original ones" - it could be more humanoid in shape (human/prothen/assari ?) -, technically the best shape for a ship is a ball or asaucer due to volume/surface ratio) so the shape of Crucible we see in game could be "prototype", or a "backbone" of actual, final Alliance Reaper - maybe based on choices made at ME2 ending ?
Kasumi's greybox could fit in nicely indeed ! Maybe it could provide data that Batarians gathered at great cost and were probably never revealed to Alliance teams building Crusible/Reaper- this would make Kasumi (excellent character) even more worthwile and Stolen Memory (fantastic DLC in my opinion) a realy meaningful , iso being completely ridiculed in ME3

Plus -making  Leviathan explanation of Reapers' creations as THE explanation of Reapers would allow us to complete foregone Starbrat and entire London -Call of duty like -mission + Citadel Return part -  debacle

Even better: with high EMS  Shepard's "essence " could be returned to his body - allowing for great ending.
I know it looks a little like Evangelion  but  I think it is unconventional enough (I refer to regular warfare) and beats original endings every day !

THAT could me MY headcannon !

What do You Guys think ?
If any one would like to expand on this or create a fanfic based on this - please feel free.
 

[DecCylonus]

CaptainCommander wrote...

DecCylonus wrote...

I think an ending without an explanation would have been unsatisfying.Villains with no motivation are the things of children's cartoons. ME deserved better than that. I enjoyed the mystery for two games, but I wouldn't want to win the war and not understand what I had fought.

I don't know a theme that has existed in all ME games is the unknown and it ties with Humans being the newest race to join the Citadel. ME1 is about finding the Prothean's relics and finding out who this giant ship is. ME2 you have these unseen Collectors and you go on a search to find them. ME3 starts out with the unknown Crucible and you continue with an unknown victory type feel (pulling hairs for ME3).

ME is about the unknown. And the Reapers to me symbolised that! They were humanities fears of the unknown galaxy confronting them and we had to defeat them. And you could easily add a conversation with Harbinger in ME3 where you don't get an explanation of motives and creation but rather an understanding of the Reapers. Say Harbinger tells you that they require the technology and resources of the cycles to survive in between the cycles. Or even have Harbinger say we collect the knowledge of the galaxy and preserve it for what ever reason that could be ME4. 

But the Reapers should never had been these apex race's answer to trying to stop a conflict. In Leviathan Shepard even says something along the lines of you made the same mistakes as the races you tried to protect and Leviathan just answers "You can't understand us!". Its something you say to an annoying child.

Should of stayed a mystery and you would have positive speculation on this board instead of everyone trying to fix the game with collective head-canon.

I agree that the unknown was a major theme of the trilogy. It was well done and I liked that theme. I disagree that leaving the Reapers as unknown would have been a satisfying conclusion. The biggest reason is that we would not have had closure at the end of the game. Sure, Shepard beat the Reapers, maybe sacrificing himself and / or major parts of the galaxy in the process. But if we don't know where they came from, then there is always a chance there are more out there. So the whole epic end of Shepard's story arc could be for nothing. I don't think such an end for a character so beloved as Shepard would have sat well with the fans.

It also would have locked Mass Effect into forever being about the Reapers, and I don't think Bioware wants that. They created a rich fiction of the galaxy with plenty of interesting things besides the Reapers going on. Those things, and not the Reapers, are the major reasons that the fans love the series. I think Bioware wanted to free the franchise to explore those other things, and they had to bring a final end to the Reapers to do that.

As far as everyone trying to "fix" the game with their collective head cannon, I think the only way to avoid that would have been a conventional victory.

[KennyAshes]

MassivelyEffective0730 wrote...

The given backstory to the Reapers was really bad.

A means to stop a literal conflict between organics and synthetics. It totally ruined them. And Star Jar was just... terrible.

I'd have been fine with them being left unexplained.

If they did have to explain the Reapers though, they should have done this (my subjective opinion):

A post-singularity civilization (ie. Leviathan) that has, somewhere down the line been corrupted by the technology they possess. Combining the machine logic and order of the Reapers machine body with the incredible ego and arrogance of the Leviathans, the Reapers become beings that believe they are the pinnacle of existence and evolution. All life-forms are lesser beings that pollute the majesty of the Reapers with their very existence. So the Reapers resolve to cleanse the chaos with their twisted vision of order. But the Reapers are not without 'mercy'. They forcefully harvest other races and create new Reapers from their remains to give them the knowledge to appreciate their ordered perfection.

How does that sound?

I'd rather go for the pre-big-bang apex civilization's synthetic army. Their civilization perished with the big bang but the Reapers are still maintaining their goal
Or a pre-big-bang civilization that saw no other sollution for surviving the big bang than to become Reapers. And the AI was formed to harvest all 'intelligent' species to survive the big bang and still keep doing so because nothing told it to stop. (hence the harvest of space-faring races only)

Or just no background. just massive warships attacking for a reason we can't comprehend. I can live with that also.

[Ieldra]

Eterna5 wrote...

DinoSteve wrote...

The mistake wasn't in trying to explain them it was the ridiculous explanation we were given for them.

No explanation would have been good enough for everyone. Bioware effectively wrote themselves into a corner with the Reapers. Anything they would come up with would have ended up being just as cheesy as what we got because with an enemy as all knowing and all powerful as the Reapers, no backstory could do them justice. 

I'm for the most part satisfied with the reasoning behind their existence. It is faulty no doubt, but it is coherant enough that I can overlook the obvious faults. 

I second this. And I believe no explanation would've been much worse. Just "kill them because they're trying to kill you", with no explanation for.....millions of years of galactic history? How utterly cheap that would've been...

[KennyAshes]

dafangirl wrote...

The Reapers were ruined the minute the Citadel VI showed up. Anderson talked about WMD's since the Eden Prime beacon. Why not simply have let the Crucible hook up with the Catalyst, in this case the Citadel, and in true Shepard style "Blow the Reapers, the hell up." After all, that is Shepard's S.O.P. Virmire...boom, the Collector Base...(maybe) boom, and in ME3 the Reapers, yeap...boom!

For me the Reapers were ruined the minute they said the Crucible was worked on cycle after cycle because the first cycle to start working on it must have known what the Citadel was capable of. And they must have been way further than us.

Then it only became worse when you killed your first Reaper, making them mortal (not talking about Souvereign because he died because his shields dropped after killing Saren. Thus his own fault).

And then the explenation was well... a bit of 'huh? that's it? The motive we'd never understand?

[kumquats]

For me, the Borg eat the Reapers for breakfast. After many years their background story is still a mystery and I hope it will stay that way.
Yes, there is an explenation why they harvest all organic life. They want to achieve perfection. It's simple and elegant.

It's possible to have an explenation, that is just simple and never reveal any kind of background information and still have a kick ass villain. I hate Leviathan DLC for that very reason.

[teh DRUMPf!!]

ME3 was nothing. ME2 & Harbinger ruined the Reapers.

[Nykara]

dafangirl wrote...

The Reapers were ruined the minute the Citadel VI showed up. Anderson talked about WMD's since the Eden Prime beacon. Why not simply have let the Crucible hook up with the Catalyst, in this case the Citadel, and in true Shepard style "Blow the Reapers, the hell up." After all, that is Shepard's S.O.P. Virmire...boom, the Collector Base ...(maybe) boom, and in ME3 the Reapers, yeap...boom!

Replace collector base there with the Omega 4 Relay, that was a bigger boom.

[Auld Wulf]

@OP

It really didn't, no. I'm tired of faceless, one-dimensional evils. This is Mass Effect, not Space Invaders.

[MegaSovereign]

Apocaleepse360 wrote...

Yep. Just about every piece of information we get on the Reapers in ME3 contradicts everything that Sovereign told us in ME1. Preserving us? Oh, I'm sorry. I was under the impression that you lot had come to destroy us, since that's pretty much what Sovereign said. Sentient machines? Nah. Now you're all controlled by a weird holographic kid. Speaking of which, BioWare STILL hasn't answered why the ****ing thing looks like the kid from the first mission!

The "preserving us" revelation was back in ME2, not ME3. And what Sovereign says is not concrete fact. He says that the Reapers are immortal and have no beginning or end. That's not even true and it's proven by the end of the first game that Reapers can die.

[Mr.House]

I always wanted their origins reveled, which is why I really enjoyed Leviathan, it also kept them motivations the Intelligence very vague and open to speculation so the player could till headcanon the motivations and such.

It's the conversation with Starbrat I hate because it destroys all speculation about the Reapers, with their motivation revealed, they lost that one spark, not to mention the motivation is plain stupid and they should have just kept the motivation up to the players.

[AnsinJung]

Do you ever wake up in the morning and a happy dog is there to greet you?  I had this experience on vacation visiting my family, and I realized I missed some things about family life/owning a pet, in spite of the danger of being slimed.

That is a joy the Reapers will never know.  "Blah blah it's in their synthetic memory, they run that program twice a day" doesn't count, just like Data didn't get all excited like Captain Picard when touching the missile of history that brought about First Contact. 

In short, it's not even logical for the Reapers to be Reapers.  They lack the simple joys of life, and a higher intelligence would know of these things and not remove them from the galaxy.  Sure you can do more, "higher form of life, cannot comprehend" logic, and that's always been fine as long as I can put my gamer bullets into it.

Maybe one day they'll find that Voyager satellite with all the classical music and realize, "gosh what have we been destroying?  It seems that this isn't all preserved in our Terminator Reaper."

Please don't put Twilight on the next satellite.


P.S. come to think of it, why don't the Reapers use the Collector's bugs?  They'd win even harder with that, and it's beyond unrealistic to think the tech was lost with the Collectors.  Harbinger was their hive mind, I think he knows.

Modifié par AnsinJung, 19 mars 2013 - 05:25 .