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[djschemp]

A Mass Effect aside occurred to me as a logical offshoot from thinking about the alternatives available to very technologically advanced civilizations:
Beyond a certain level of technology, a very advanced civilization would not have to resort to any physical violence to eliminate a less advanced population the way the Reapers attempt. The Reaper method is massive and manual, by invasion and inefficient destruction of large population areas by direct attack. A race of hyperintelligent machines as they claim to be would have much more efficient means at their disposal, (biological, chemical, environmental [asteroids, black holes, supernovae]) at their disposal which not only would be more effective and efficient, but would allow the cause to remain secret. Invasion makes no sense above a certain level of technology unless there is something you are trying to gain from the population (i.e. slaves, etc). I do know the Reapers try to ascend a race, but they also wipe them out. In a destruction scenario (ME3) there would be so many more efficient means of destruction. Why not just hurl a large asteroid into a planet?
Following this line of logic, either the Reapers are 1)not amazingly advanced beyond the populations they are destroying (and thus are understandably eliminating a threat) or 2) they are doing it in the manual way for another reason.
1.       If the machines are not hyper-advanced (lets say they only have very advanced armor and some weapons as borne out by the ME canon) then it is understandable they try to eliminate threats, but then why were they not eliminated by the Protheans who were supposedly much more advanced than the current age human-asari-turian-salarian-krogan populations? And yet the current age still succeeds? It would have to have been a serious Prothean miscalculation to allow that (which may be true given what Javik says about fractions within Prothean society). But this theory seems somewhat reasonable given that the Reapers are not borne out to be immortal or infallible  and are often destroyed primarily by the actions of one or a few (very motivated) individuals.
 
2.       However, if they ARE hyper-intelligent, they would be aware of the alternate means to destroy advanced societies without direct manual intervention. So, a) their programming is very flawed on methods and therefore they may be very-intelligent but fundamentally flawed or they enjoy manual destruction of organic life or c) they are acting as a galactic agent of artificial selection.
 
a.       Flawed Reapers. A logic fault by the Reapers makes some sense, esp. given that they are purportedly destroying organic life to prevent its destruction by synthetics. This makes no logical sense since the Reapers themselves are synthetic. So perhaps they are flawed in their methods as well. This may also be indicated by their very powerful but very limited weaponry (that appears like a single or few) cutting lasers on the Reaper platform itself. Why would it have such limited large weaponry and have to resort to ground proxies such as warped organics to aid their force? Also, why do they offer an easy means to ultimately defeat them? (i.e. grab these electrodes and control us / shoot this pipe thingy and destroy us)
 
b.      Evil Reapers. If they have advanced means at their disposal and are not logically flawed, then they could choose manual destruction because they enjoy it. In this case they are inherently evil. Also, this makes winning the game difficult: if your final confrontation with the Catalyst/Starkid reveals that they are the heart/mind of the Reapers then they must also be the heart/mind of the evil. Thus why would they give an organic the choice of controlling, destroying or merging with them? Wouldn’t it be easier to suggest merge, while the other two result in death? (yes destroy us by shooting this random pipe which actually just explodes killing you / yes control us by grabbing these two sparking electrode thingies…nothing bad will happen….). It is unlikely the Reapers or their Leviathan creators programmed in prohibitions against lying (those are cultural human biases, not even uniformly held across human populations…why would they be in alien ones…esp. malevolent alien ones…i.e. Leviathan). Thus you cannot trust anything they tell you about your final choices, nor can you trust that they will not betray your ultimate choice. You’re screwed. Evil Reapers theory also supports the warped organic proxies to create mass fear and bloody (though inefficient) destruction.
 
c.       Artificial Selection. The Reapers could choose the manual extermination method as a type of artificial selection that they do not want to be completely secret. Through this means they generationally exterminate cycles while allowing some knowledge, warning, segments to continue to advance with the goal of having the strongest, smartest, best cycle finally complete to allow best final merging with synthetics. This is probably the most intelligent reason of the three. They would have to selectively allow warnings and remnants of Reapers to at some point enter a current cycle to see how well they prepare. They could also monitor this via the Citadel and any other available means.  It would make sense if the ultimate goal was to have the best possible specimens to complement the merge process by using the Crucible and final battles as a test of will, mert, intelligence, etc, to determine worthiness. This would also make sense as sending Sovereign as an initial test. This allows the Reapers to be very intelligent while not inherently evil and provides a purpose, and makes the most sense. In essence they are phylogenically selecting the evolution of the strongest survivor, but through knowledge and advancement as opposed to through genetics. However, how does this compute / parse with Catalyst stated directive to save organic life from synthetic destruction? Especially when they just NOW figured out an alternative solution to the cycle now that the Crucible is complete (as he states). Also, then why offer an organic any options besides merging? And if so, to allow for free will of the organic chooser, why would the alternatives be true? Does a scientist in the lab genetically selecting fruit flies for a specific gene expression offer the strongest fly in the tube the option of killing or controlling him/her? Why then would a Reaper? An organic choosing non-merge options would just be killed in the choosing & thus did not pass the final test and the cycle would continue.

The only way around this is if the Reapers had a truly (and unlikely) self-sacrificing ultimate respect for the free will choice of the organic making the final (Control, Synthesize, Destroy) decision. That would have to be a logic flaw, strong ethical bias, or something originally programmed by the Leviathan creators. But if so, how do they justify the violation of free will of the millions of organics they are terminating?

[Massa FX]

The Reapers are flawed because the catalyst is insane due to crap Leviathan programming.

[Nightdragon8]

"We are saving the Organics from being killed by there own creation, synthtics. So they have made it so they devlop the civilations fast and then harvest them to create more repears. they are protecting "Organic" life, Remember not every planet gets taken over.

They are protecting life in gerneal not "freedom"

[Massa FX]

Murder is murder.
Dead is dead.
The harvest preservation process murders organics leaving the harvested specimen dead.

This preservation is fine if they asked for volunteers... Like a donar program. Imagine the Citadel ads for Reaper harvesting urging denizens to donate their bodies for preservation of their race. Much less horror and violence. I'm sure for a fee many people would donate their loved ones remains.

[AlexMBrennan]

A race of hyperintelligent machines as they claim to be would have much more efficient means at their disposal, (biological, chemical, environmental [asteroids, black holes, supernovae

Because doing so would likely render a big chunk of the galaxy uninhabitable - so they'd prevent synthetics from wiping out all life by personally destroying all planets capable of developing life... Brilliant.

Why not just hurl a large asteroid into a planet?

Because asteroids are slow, visible to telescopes and such and ME civilisations have the technology to change the trajectory of asteroid-sized bodies?

However, if they ARE hyper-intelligent

The rest of the post rests on the assumption that there are at least two distinctive levels of intelligence - "hyper" and "Not hyper" which are completely different in every way, and on the assumption that "hyper" intelligent beings can only act the way you just came up with in 5min while typing this article.

they are acting as a galactic agent of artificial selection.

They are, but that has nothing to do with anything - regardless of whether they drop a supernova wiping out our solar system completely or go from door to door shooting every human in he head they are still engaging in artifice selection.

Modifié par AlexMBrennan, 25 janvier 2014 - 10:40 .

[Vigilant111]

@OP: Good read

A few points:

The fact that reapers are synthetics is not in itself a predication for their flawed methods

What is interesting is fact that reaper ships, where their power and reputation lie, are in fact large and clumsy spacecraft and somehow this weakness is not exploited by their opponents

I am not quite sure if the reapers are looking for fittest-to-survive specimens, since these ultimately do NOT survive, but they do demonstrate particular kind of qualities: the thirst to be free, perseverance, courage, intelligence... whatever it may be but these qualities are recurring all the time with organic individuals, why slaughter so many? and why preserve these when the Catalyst is controlling the reapers all the time? i.e. the true nature of the reapers never get revealed anyway. However, they do exhibit certain organic traits such as arrogance, ignorance and anger (most notable in refuse ending)

Also note, quite a few people here do not view reapers as immoral, but rather amoral, their actions are not bound by morality

Modifié par Vigilant111, 25 janvier 2014 - 12:27 .

[Navasha]

We have the capability to wage nuclear war, so why isn't every war we undertake involve a full nuclear exchange?

The answer is simple. Its overkill and usually completely nullifies your objective in even waging the war. The reapers don't want planets destroyed and star systems wiped out. They think they are "protecting" life.

To them, the cycle is a 'harvest'. They are collecting the organics. Our farmers don't harvest their fields with a flame thrower just to clear the field more efficiently. Reapers are farmers, more or less. They choose 'seed' civilizations to survive, cultivate them along certain technological pathways as they grow, then harvest them when they are 'ripe'.

Typically, the reaper assault on the galaxy starts with shutting down everything, isolating the systems, where the full reaper armada can dismantle civilizations easily and without losses. For whatever, reason they completely abandoned that plan in our cycle, and they paid the price for it.

Modifié par Navasha, 25 janvier 2014 - 01:47 .

[shodiswe]

It is efficient.
The Catalyst didnt have to do anything, it's reaper thrals and tools did all the labour.
The methods used are reliable, it has worked for thousands of cycles. Hundreds of millions of years or even billions.

The catalyst is also using indoctrination and indoctrinated agents like Saren, TIM and Cerberus. It did the same in all other harvests.

The Reapers arn't the masters, they are merely the tools, or as the Catalyst tells you, the fire.

Also the reapers didn't need to harvest everyone just enough to pretend they preserved the species history and genetic diversity.

If someone destroyed a reaper causing the loss of a harvested civilisation then that was outside interferance and not the Catalysts fault, least that seems to be it's reasoning given it's strategy.

Modifié par shodiswe, 25 janvier 2014 - 05:50 .

[Vigilant111]

Navasha wrote...

We have the capability to wage nuclear war, so why isn't every war we undertake involve a full nuclear exchange?

The answer is simple. Its overkill and usually completely nullifies your objective in even waging the war. The reapers don't want planets destroyed and star systems wiped out. They think they are "protecting" life.

To them, the cycle is a 'harvest'. They are collecting the organics. Our farmers don't harvest their fields with a flame thrower just to clear the field more efficiently. Reapers are farmers, more or less. They choose 'seed' civilizations to survive, cultivate them along certain technological pathways as they grow, then harvest them when they are 'ripe'.

Typically, the reaper assault on the galaxy starts with shutting down everything, isolating the systems, where the full reaper armada can dismantle civilizations easily and without losses. For whatever, reason they completely abandoned that plan in our cycle, and they paid the price for it.

I think of this as the official story provided by the reapers, and there is always something else which is veiled. The story isn't straight forward as complications arise: the Catalyst's inability to comprehend the link between the survial of thralls and their respective "tribute"; the Catalyst's betrayal - how did this decision arise in the first place? What purpose would this betrayal achieve?

[Obadiah]

OP, That's a pretty good breakdown.

To your premise, in fact, there are several instances where the Reapers appear over a planet and just puncture the atmospheric habitat of the colony from orbit, or attack the vital farming/transport infrastructure, and then leave, secure in their knowledge that the people will die off on their own. The full on invasion only appears to happen when they want to harvest the civilization.

With respect to why the Reapers don't perform or use other advanced actions which are possible (biological attack) it may be that the full consequences are just not quantifiable. For example, a biological attack would lead to massive deaths, but it would also lead to organics that have resistance, now have a sample of the virus to work with, and perhaps use in some way against the Reapers, in the same way this civilization used Thanix cannons against the Reapers. It may also be difficult to assure complete destruction of the biological agent, since ANY surviving organic may now carry it (plant, bacteria, etc). The more complex the attack, the more difficult to evaluate the complete outcome, so maybe a less efficient simpler attack is a more logical approach.

With respect to 2©, I have thought "the Reapers as an agent of selection" to be a very interesting idea. As part of the galaxy, they do act as selectors whether that was their intention or not. There was another thread (Cycles or Coils) recently that had some notions on how and what attributes the cycles could be selecting, regardless of the Reaper's intentions. Short version: more aggressive/selfish species would create advanced cycles first (selfish rational actors maximizing their benefit and succeeding), be wiped out in the Reaper cycle, leaving the slower more cooperative species in the galaxy a chance to rise up.

With respect to intentional selection I have a few ideas. The horror aspect of the cycles might be there to find a civilization able to look past it. Perhaps such a civilization would do so because its people (1) have a more clinical and analytical mentality that doesn't react to horror, or maybe because (2) they more self assured in their own inherent "right actions" that opponents of any type do not trouble them. Perhaps (1) and (2) are part of the same characteristic? Perhaps the Catalyst believes that is a civilization that could not fall victim to the inevitable conflict.

Modifié par Obadiah, 26 janvier 2014 - 02:32 .

[AlanC9]

There are some planets where the entire biosphere has been killed off. Though we don't actually know if the Reapers destroyed them or if it was done by some previous cycle before the Reapers showed up.

[General TSAR]

Reaper ethics is an oxymoron.

[shodiswe]

AlanC9 wrote...

There are some planets where the entire biosphere has been killed off. Though we don't actually know if the Reapers destroyed them or if it was done by some previous cycle before the Reapers showed up.

If a species would prve extreamly dangerous on the ground and the reapers had harvested enough of that species then it's possible they might decide to bombard them from orbit instead.
Beckenstein was blasted from orbit due to it being an industrial centre populated with heavilyarmed criminals and mercenaries.

They simply wern't worth the offort of being harvested, they already had earth and other less defended human colonies.

[AlanC9]

Was Bekenstein bombed to the point of total biosphere death, though? This seems like a poor long-term strategy for the Reapers, although there's nothing preventing them from re-seeding such a world with life.

Modifié par AlanC9, 25 janvier 2014 - 06:02 .

[His Name was HYR!!]

Massa FX wrote...

Murder is murder.
Dead is dead.
The harvest preservation process murders organics leaving the harvested specimen dead.

Missing the point entirely.

The Catalyst is harvesting civilizations that (he feels) are on the precipice of their extinction. So the value of their lives are forfeit (0). However, using them to create a new, synthetic lifeform (1) that preserves their cultural-memory is a solution.

Because 1 life > 0 lives.


(And, since this forum is plagued with hysteria, let me go on the record and say I do not personally support this solution).

Modifié par HYR 2.0, 25 janvier 2014 - 06:21 .

[Massa FX]

HYR 2.0 wrote...

Massa FX wrote...

Murder is murder.
Dead is dead.
The harvest preservation process murders organics leaving the harvested specimen dead.

Missing the point entirely.

The Catalyst is harvesting civilizations that (he feels) are on the precipice of their extinction. So the value of their lives are forfeit (0). However, using them to create a new, synthetic lifeform (1) that preserves their cultural-memory is a solution.

Because 1 life > 0 lives.


(And, since this forum is plagued with hysteria, let me go on the record and say I do not personally support this solution).

You are talking Reaper motivations. My perspective is on end results.

[Excella Gionne]

Reapers are created to preserve life from synthetics that are created by organics themselves. The Catalyst states that the organics' improvements(such as making synthetics to better their lives)are limited, and eventually their synthetic creations will rebel against the organics themselves such as the Geth and Quarian War along with the Protheans' Metacon war.

Reapers do not harvest all life within one cycle or else that would be going against their own ethics. They leave lesser organics who are not technologically advanced alone only to have them rise up in technology and dominance around the galaxy before harvesting. Looking from an ethical point of view, they really are preserving life by harvesting more technologically advanced species and current synthetics. If it were not for the Reapers, Synthetics will destroy their creators and spread across the galaxy and exterminating other organic life. This also goes another direction as to saying that Reapers harvest the advanced species to make way for new life since, if you have a dominant species control the galaxy they will enslave lesser species which makes the galaxy too small for lesser organics to live in. Reapers store everything of the organics and synthetics they harvest into a Reaper that is created from that cycle.

The Reapers themselves make their own ethical standpoint ironic since they are synthetics themselves, and by saying that they are saving organics from synthetics pretty much proves that. But you know what, who's gonna do the job? Organics? It's bad all way around should any Organic/Synthetic beings perform the harvesting.

Moving onto the point about the Crucible, Catalyst, and an organic(Shepard)making the new solution for the Reapers: The Crucible device was first created by one of the past harvested cycles in which the Catalyst did not have time to explain to us who they were, and no doubt, has it evolved and added to by other cycles that discovered the Crucible plans and planned to build it but failed but managed to preserve its schematics through cycles all the way to the current cycle. The Crucible's design is made to properly work with the Catalyst(Citadel), and once it docked onto the Citadel it reprogrammed the Catalyst's function to consider its given options by the Crucible. Since the Crucible is not a design that is created by the Reapers, the Catalyst cannot make those decisions happen without the help of an organic. Since the Reapers view Shepard as a threat stated by Leviathan, he/she is worthy of making the new solution for the next cycles. Plus, Shepard was the only one who made it to the Citadel tower.

Although, the artificial selection may seem to be there given some flaws, I don't think that is their purpose. As the Catalyst said the Reapers do not seek war even if the organics see it as war, war is not their purpose.

[TuringPoint]

They preserve the species in composite form so that their is no conflict.  They are not working to preserve any specific race, but if they mean to protect anyone it is the younger races they protect.  I think it is not just the synthetic wars at issue, but the fragility of organic life and the immense resources to sustain it, and the inevitable growth of organic life would see no use for synthetic life to drain resources.  But that is not a living concept.  It doesn't account for free will.

Ethics does not form their agenda, they act as a force of nature to maintain a galactic status quo for organic life, and synthetics.  Organic life would die out according to their calculations, so they acted on it. 

I know people take the genophage as horribly evil as well, but again, that was according to calculations of doom for all life.  It's quite clear there were two sides of it.  The calculations may have been right, but so is defiance of that and making your own destiny.  That is being alive.

I think it would be interesting if the Reapers cultivated or guided earlier organic life, to some degree.  They could easily do it and have reason to.  It would be interesting to see that side to them.


In response to one of the points:  The Protheans we're not prepared, but they used their experiences and abilities to prepare the next cycle in some very profound ways.

Modifié par Alocormin, 25 janvier 2014 - 09:10 .

[Obadiah]

@Alocormin
I think means that the ethical framework the Reapers use is a form of Consequentialism, where action that produces a result with the most "goodness", or "happiness", or "benefit", or "rightness", or whatever-the-objective is used to judge the action.

In fact, when the Catalyst explained the Reaper in terms of "fire", I'm pretty sure it was trying to make the Reaper's actions fit into a human ethical framework, the Principle of Double Effect by arguing the nature of the action is indifferent (is not a bad war, but an indifferent fire burning).

Modifié par Obadiah, 25 janvier 2014 - 09:41 .

[TuringPoint]

Yeah, and a little or a lot of being too powerful to recognize the meaning of smaller agendas.

[SwobyJ]

"They're just trying to control us!"

If you want to understand the Reapers, there you go. TIM explains it.

ME3 doesn't really ask you much to understand them. It just does that more than ME1-ME2 combined is all.
"Here's some vague answers on their methods and morality. You want to sort through it, good luck!" = ME3


ME4 can't come fast enough for me.

Modifié par SwobyJ, 25 janvier 2014 - 09:54 .

[General TSAR]

SwobyJ wrote...
ME4 can't come fast enough for me.

Amen.

[AlanC9]

SwobyJ wrote...

"They're just trying to control us!"

If you want to understand the Reapers, there you go. TIM explains it.

ME3 doesn't really ask you much to understand them. It just does that more than ME1-ME2 combined is all.
"Here's some vague answers on their methods and morality. You want to sort through it, good luck!" = ME3

ME4 can't come fast enough for me.

You may want to prepare yourself for the possibility that Bio will never address these questions. 

[SwobyJ]

AlanC9 wrote...

SwobyJ wrote...

"They're just trying to control us!"

If you want to understand the Reapers, there you go. TIM explains it.

ME3 doesn't really ask you much to understand them. It just does that more than ME1-ME2 combined is all.
"Here's some vague answers on their methods and morality. You want to sort through it, good luck!" = ME3

ME4 can't come fast enough for me.

You may want to prepare yourself for the possibility that Bio will never address these questions. 

Are you thinking I haven't? Pfft, that's so 2012.