Wulfram wrote...
I don't think technological singularity was actually a bad choice as a "why" of the reapers. It was just the execution was horrible - mostly because they didn't really do a good job explaining and exploring the concept beforehand (the Geth Dyson sphere was a great opportunity to do just that, but it's virtually ignored), partly because it seemed like the writers either didn't get it or didn't think people would get it, so it seemed like it was dumbed down to just the Frankenstein story of rebelling against creators.
As a concept I certainly prefer it to the Dark Energy stuff.
In and of itself the Technological singularity scenario wasn't bad I agree, but I don't think it really fit the Reapers even if it had been executed better. That's not saying that I would despise the motivation if it was implemented better, its just that (IMO) turning the Reapers into the "Killing you to save you from yourselves." (You being the current cycle and yourselves being the galaxy at large)trope was a mistake.
It just didn't fit the Reapers' character. Having the Catalyst portraying the Reapers as a cleansing fire, mearly doing what they were programed to do would have worked if the Reapers had never spoke to Shepard at all. But Soveriegn and Harbinger DID talk to Shepard, and while one could say that Sovreign was mearly all bluster, Harbinger's actions in ME 2 didn't come across as logical machine efficency in ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM. If the Reapers had been silent killing machines, methodically killing the people of the galaxy then the Catalyst's assertations make sense, and its use of the cycles would have a logical extentsion of what was shown prior.
Harbinger's taunting (not of Shepard) of the captured colonists, who had no possibility of escape, or of his slow, tortute of said colonists; 'liquifiying them one at a time, in full view of the others; makes no sense compared to what ME 3 tells us. On one hand, the narritive wants the Reapers to be these nightmarish Cuthulu-esque monsters that feed on fear and pain, and then on the other they want them to be these mindless muder bots mearly following their programing. It can't be both ways and still make sense (IMO). And no, this is not because I want to feel vindicated in blowing up the bad guys, this is because such a shift in character makes the Reapers/Catalyst appear bi-polar, and it breaks the flow of the narrative.
A better motivation would have simply been 'The Cycle' or 'The Harvest', no convienient Leviathians or Catalyst to explain the intentions behind the Cycles; just the simple repeated galactic genocides because that is what the Reapers were made to do. This may seem just like what we have now, but it would have the benifit of not having to come up with some convoluted way of why the Reapers reap; they just do. Automated automobile assembly lines don't need to know why they make cars, or the value the society that created the automated factory places on cars, they just make cars because that is what they were made to do.
This way the actions of Sovreign and especially Harbinger don't clash with the passive nature the Catalyst tries to portray the Reapers as. If the Reapers were simply created to preform the Harvest, and like the doomsday scenario of the "Grey Goo", they got out of control, there would be no need to explain everything about them, or where they came from. Harbinger and the Reapers could not even know who created them, thus alining with the whole "We have no begining have no end. We are eternal." they don't even know. The Cycle could be something the Reapers treat with an almost religious reverence, the thing that gives them purpose, and could very easily be linked to the whole notion of fate vs. determinism the series touched apon. Speculation on the reason behind the Cycles could remain along with the Cuthulu vibe the Reapers had, and the theme of organic vs. synthetic is still applied.
Retour en haut
