364 réponses à ce sujet

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

Humans like to eat.... junk food. Hence would be be the special species for consuming and recycling dark energy as a reaper! I figured it out. We're McDonald's addicts. That's the entire deal behind the dark energy plot. Junk food and fast food. There it is. Why didn't they just make a Vorcha reaper and get it over with? They could have picked anything. Because Hoomunz R Speshul.

And the Asari? Well lets just say that biotics don't do a hell of a lot of good when your enemy is taller than skyscrapers.

But in ME1, Sovereign? Having a crap ton of those things? Come on, really, Drew? They had no fascination to me. They were big and bad and we had to stop them. ME2? So we got the derp and more derp. and finding out how they harvest and make a reaper didn't destroy what they were. I still wasn't fascinated with them. I still just wanted them dead.

In ME3? I mean Mac, WTF are we supposed to do? We were playing with both hands tied behind our backs. Three years? It should have taken them 20 years, Mac. We should have been able to overcome the political BS. Garrus was working on that. We should have been far better prepared. We should have been able to have made peace with the Geth and Quarians, or the Quarians taken Rannoch and put the Geth back under control well before the reapers arrived.

And that ending.... Ugh...

[Clayless]

iakus wrote...

Robosexual wrote...


"We can't think of anything" isn't an explanation. "We have no motive" isn't one either, especially coming from Sovereign, who lied from the moment you saw him.

Revealing that the Reapers had no motive would have made them a joke on a monumental scale.

What are you talking about?  Sovereign outright tells Shepard that he/she wouldn't be able to comprehend what they're doing.  That's not "We have no motive"  at all!  It's simply an incomprehensible motive.  

If you don't understand something, does it cease to exist?

And Sovereign didn't lie.  Bioware simply retconned the Reapers.

If someone doesn't create something, does it exist?

And "We have no beginning and we have no end"

"Oh wait yes we do" isn't a retcon, seeing as though it happens in the first game.

[CrutchCricket]

Robosexual wrote...

If someone doesn't create something, does it exist?

Energy cannot be created or destroyed.

Energy exists.

Your argument is invalid. Actually I don't even know what you're trying to argue.

Modifié par CrutchCricket, 30 juillet 2013 - 06:09 .

[AlanC9]

He's arguing that if Bio had said that the Reapers had a motive that we just can't understand, all it would mean is that Bio had failed to come up with anything. It would be an obvious and rather contemptible cop-out.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

Robosexual wrote...

iakus wrote...

Robosexual wrote...


"We can't think of anything" isn't an explanation. "We have no motive" isn't one either, especially coming from Sovereign, who lied from the moment you saw him.

Revealing that the Reapers had no motive would have made them a joke on a monumental scale.

What are you talking about?  Sovereign outright tells Shepard that he/she wouldn't be able to comprehend what they're doing.  That's not "We have no motive"  at all!  It's simply an incomprehensible motive.  

If you don't understand something, does it cease to exist?

And Sovereign didn't lie.  Bioware simply retconned the Reapers.

If someone doesn't create something, does it exist?

And "We have no beginning and we have no end"

"Oh wait yes we do" isn't a retcon, seeing as though it happens in the first game.

So wait....

Sovereign: "We have no beginning and we have no end."

and since they are not pure energy.... they are just a story told by an old man to a young boy. Or a story by an Asari matriarch to a young child.

The reapers don't exist. The Shepard is a story book.

[AlanC9]

Yes, the Reapers are fictional. You just noticed?

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

AlanC9 wrote...

Yes, the Reapers are fictional. You just noticed?

funny.

[AlanC9]

Just trying to play along.

[nos_astra]

AlanC9 wrote...
He's arguing that if Bio had said that the Reapers had a motive that we just can't understand, all it would mean is that Bio had failed to come up with anything. It would be an obvious and rather contemptible cop-out.

Or just the logical consequence of how the Reapers were set up in ME1.

Beings that are millions of years old and have shown nothing but contempt for the organics they strive to kill. Of course, in time we will stumble upon information that will explain it all, even if we have barely enough information to understand the civilization of the last cycle (50.000 years ago). Or even better: The quite awesome protagonist impresses the ancient overlords on a killing spree enough to make them feel like explaining their motives.

There's a problem with the perception of time and space if that setup compelled anyone to believe a thorough explanation was forthcoming.

ME3 eventually actually managed to do both. The Catalyst reveals itself and for some lame reason decides that the dying Shepard who just managed to walk through an open door and collapse on the elevator is the one person in thousands of cycles suddenly deserving of an explanation. And the Leviathans pop up, too, despite being the first race to be harvested and turned into Reapers ... by one AI ... incapable of stopping said AI. O.o Yay!

Can't think of an alternative off the top of my head that would pass for not contrived, stupid and blatantly disregarding that the Reapers are a) truly ancient, far more developed than any species in the galaxy, c) definitely not human and the galaxy is really, really, really huge.

Modifié par klarabella, 30 juillet 2013 - 09:21 .

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

There was no logic to the existence to the reapers. How they were made was in ME2. How they came into existence was in ME3. The Extended Cut tried to explain the Original Ending. Stupid cuttlefish were the galaxy's first Grand Darwin Award Winners. Their existence came about because Bioware decided they needed to justify the existence of the Catalyst. So you see, the more they tried to fix the story the more they broke it.

Instead of having the stupid cuttlefish be huge big Leviathans, they should have had them evolve over the billions of years into something like they should have. They had their time, and were now useless. Shepard should have gone to the depths to find perhaps a fossilized ruin under sandstone, and had been surrounded by a bunch of these guys who tried to feed on his mech. Then made some noise and scattered.



Some mysteries are best left unsolved. 0 war assets. You have come too far indeed.

Given the fact that each cycle seems to have left clues for the next there should be some kind of history of the cycles. Apparently Vendetta had this, and this had never been exploited to its fullest. What they could have shown is an evolutionary path that it seemed like each progressive cycle seemed to be getting closer and closer to defeating the reapers.

Of course that would have required some planning on the part of Bioware not to have totally derpped us in ME2 with the "Ah yes, 'reapers'." Then given the reapers "super drive" to get to the galaxy in such a short time with the galactic powers totally unprepared, and the reapers so totally overpowered.

But then certain people would say "we wouldn't feel like total heroes." Screw it. Write a good story with and ending that makes sense.

[teh DRUMPf!!]

iakus wrote...

Robosexual wrote...


"We can't think of anything" isn't an explanation. "We have no motive" isn't one either, especially coming from Sovereign, who lied from the moment you saw him.

Revealing that the Reapers had no motive would have made them a joke on a monumental scale.

What are you talking about?  Sovereign outright tells Shepard that he/she wouldn't be able to comprehend what they're doing.  That's not "We have no motive"  at all!  It's simply an incomprehensible motive.  

If you don't understand something, does it cease to exist?

And Sovereign didn't lie.  Bioware simply retconned the Reapers.

You're both wrong.

It's not that they didn't have motive in ME1. They did. They just didn't tell us what it was.

And no, claiming that we're too stupid to get what they're doing not constitute explaining their motives, either.

[CrutchCricket]

It's got nothing to do with stupidity. We are insignificant specs in the grand scheme of things. To believe we can just up and understand everything we come across no matter how vast or alien is sheer arrogance.

"You cannot comprehend" means exactly that. Your mind can't wrap around this thing that's way too vast. Or maybe simply too alien. It's not always about scale. And it's not some cosmic horror thing either. It's just profoundly inhuman or beyond human.

AlanC9 wrote...

He's arguing that if Bio had said that the Reapers had a motive that we just can't understand, all it would mean is that Bio had failed to come up with anything. It would be an obvious and rather contemptible cop-out.

Oh so in other words, making assumptions about the developers, i.e. the thing he always ****es at other people for. Got it.

[Iakus]

CrutchCricket wrote...

It's got nothing to do with stupidity. We are insignificant specs in the grand scheme of things. To believe we can just up and understand everything we come across no matter how vast or alien is sheer arrogance.

"You cannot comprehend" means exactly that. Your mind can't wrap around this thing that's way too vast. Or maybe simply too alien. It's not always about scale. And it's not some cosmic horror thing either. It's just profoundly inhuman or beyond human.

This human gets it

[AlanC9]

CrutchCricket wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

He's arguing that if Bio had said that the Reapers had a motive that we just can't understand, all it would mean is that Bio had failed to come up with anything. It would be an obvious and rather contemptible cop-out.

Oh so in other words, making assumptions about the developers, i.e. the thing he always ****es at other people for. Got it.

Wait... you really think that Bio would come up with some sort of workable explanation about the Reapers' origin and purpose... and then never tell anyone about it? 

[CrutchCricket]

No I think "we are too vast and alien for you to understand but we're gonna kill your ass" is explanation enough, given they portray the Reapers almost as a cosmic force, except when they remember that we still have to win somehow.

The Reapers started out as very Cthulu-esque, cosmic-horror things. That was dispelled in ME1 by the destruction of one and in ME2 by the attempted creation of one. At face value it contradicts Sovereign's "we have no beginning and no end" but only at the most superficial level. Individual Reapers may come and go but it could've been established that there must always be some Reapers (for reasons) thus making that statement technically correct.

Furthermore we can get into the theoretical intelligence and processing power of just one Reaper (as put forth in this post) and conclude that their perception really has no beginning and no end.

But anyway, to bring it back to the story and motivations, it's not simply a binary choice of either making some **** up about motivations or not. There can always be hints as to what it may be but no conclusive definition, leaving it to fans to speculate. Plenty of ways to do that, to hint at some larger purpose without actually saying what it is (and thus contradicting yourself and cheapening your previously immutable force). Like I said earlier in this very thread, the harvests in this galaxy may just be the sideshow or the time-waster in a much larger Reaper plot.

[Tron Mega]

iakus wrote...

CrutchCricket wrote...

It's got nothing to do with stupidity. We are insignificant specs in the grand scheme of things. To believe we can just up and understand everything we come across no matter how vast or alien is sheer arrogance.

"You cannot comprehend" means exactly that. Your mind can't wrap around this thing that's way too vast. Or maybe simply too alien. It's not always about scale. And it's not some cosmic horror thing either. It's just profoundly inhuman or beyond human.

This human gets it

your giving way to much credit to other peices of fiction, because the repaers in ME4 were not deep and mystical creatures.

they were robots set on destroy mode. period. theres nothing significant about the reapers other then their sheilding. which their shielding was so powerfull it runined the ending to the trilogy.

Modifié par Tron Mega, 30 juillet 2013 - 03:43 .

[CrutchCricket]

Tron Mega wrote...

your giving way to much credit to other peices of fiction, because the repaers in ME4 were not deep and mystical creatures.

they were robots set on destroy mode. period. theres nothing significant about the reapers other then their sheilding. which their shielding was so powerfull it runined the ending to the trilogy.

Well... just one more difference between what should've been and what we got.

Though to be fair if the Reapers were exactly what they were implied to be in teh first and second game, there'd be no stopping them, ever. Not even with bull**** plot devices. So they kinda wrote themselves in a corner on that as well.

[Iakus]

Tron Mega wrote...

your giving way to much credit to other peices of fiction, because the repaers in ME4 were not deep and mystical creatures.

they were robots set on destory mode. period. theres nothing significant about the reapers other then their sheilding is so good they require a buch of WTF in order to "beat" them.

And humans are just apes that climbed down from the trees.

The point is that the mental proceses of immortal cybernetic sentient dreadnoughts millions of years old should be alien to us.  Legion came the closest to articulating that sentiment, describing the thoughts of the Reaper he was connected to as "immense, overwhelming, and unknowable" and that was with the entire geth consensus boosting his brain power.

It shouldn't matter if the Reapers are deep and mystical, or just crazed killbots, thier pattern of thinking , their motives, and their reasoning would be on a level we simply can't understand. 

[Iakus]

StreetMagic wrote...

Yeah, but Legion doesn't even understand why EDI is built "top heavy". His intellect consists of merely cataloging optimal structure and order. There's a lot more unknowable to him than others. He's like an autistic child at best.

I don't understand why EDI was built so "top heavy".  (unless "fan service"" is considered a valid reason) so I'm not going to fault Legion for that.

And Legion's got a better perspective on teh reapers than pretty much anyone else Shepard ever talks to. 

[Clayless]

CrutchCricket wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

He's arguing that if Bio had said that the Reapers had a motive that we just can't understand, all it would mean is that Bio had failed to come up with anything. It would be an obvious and rather contemptible cop-out.

Oh so in other words, making assumptions about the developers, i.e. the thing he always ****es at other people for. Got it.

Do you understand what incomprehensible means?

[teh DRUMPf!!]

CrutchCricket wrote...

No I think "we are too vast and alien for you to understand but we're gonna kill your ass" is explanation enough, given they portray the Reapers almost as a cosmic force, except when they remember that we still have to win somehow.

And that is not "incomprehensible motives." That's just, "I'm not telling you because (I think) you wouldn't get it."

People look back at the previous games and see things they want to see that were never there. Like, "the Reapers were incomprehensible(, now they're just toys)." They were never "incomprehensible." In ME1, they were simply mysteries for which we had no clues. In ME2, we started getting clues. In fact, ME2 revealed why they harvest (some) organics: reproduction. That is a hint that can narrows things down to a lot of plenty comprehensible motives.

ME3 just provided an answer. In a rather sloppy way, sure, but merely doing so does not "invalidate" what they were before.

[AlanC9]

CrutchCricket wrote...

No I think "we are too vast and alien for you to understand but we're gonna kill your ass" is explanation enough, given they portray the Reapers almost as a cosmic force, except when they remember that we still have to win somehow.

Right. And like I said,  I think it's an obvious and contemptible cop-out. That sort of lame hand-waving belongs in fantasy where it's OK for stuff to be irrational.

But really, what we thought or wanted doesn't count. It's Bio's universe, and I've never seen any interview where any dev mentions ever considering having no explanation for the Reapers. They always thought they were doing SF, where you have to explain the big stuff.

The Reapers started out as very Cthulu-esque, cosmic-horror things. That was dispelled in ME1 by the destruction of one and in ME2 by the attempted creation of one. At face value it contradicts Sovereign's "we have no beginning and no end" but only at the most superficial level. Individual Reapers may come and go but it could've been established that there must always be some Reapers (for reasons) thus making that statement technically correct.

In retrospect, I wish I had polled people's reactions to that Sovereign speech when it came out. It always struck me as a pile of obscurantist b.s. Good speech, but nonsense.

Modifié par AlanC9, 30 juillet 2013 - 11:27 .

[Iakus]

AlanC9 wrote...

But really, what we thought or wanted doesn't count. It's Bio's universe, and I've never seen any interview where any dev mentions ever considering having no explanation for the Reapers. They always thought they were doing SF, where you have to explain the big stuff.

The Lazarus Project
Synthesis
organic smoothies
"The essence of a species"

:lol: