f I made a Reaper War strategy game set parallel to ME3...
So I was thinking recently about how the Reaper War of ME3 would have plenty of fodder for its own spinoffs, including an obvious role of a spin-off strategy game. Maybe RTS: maybe TBS. Certainly an excellent candidate for that huge 'how I would do War Assets' TL;DR I made in ME3, in which you had to spend war assets to gain war assets.
But I had a few musings on how I'd do that, while allowing for a storyline/re-occuring characters to keep some of the RPG-ish elements alive. A more personal relationship with your Cerberus antagonist faction: a plot-line that dove-tailed with a 'Shepard playthrough', in which the story can reflect the galactic perspective and effects of The Shepard's influence.
But most of all, I liked the idea of an exceptional Reaper with a personality as a central, re-occuring antagonist. And I think I know just how I'd frame it. It's got it all: personality, flavor, a unique flavor, and an actual motivation for not simply flying over and lasering the **** out of you.
So the Reapers are pretty direct and anonymous. Interchangeable forces of nature rather than distinct species, and for all their intelligence and adaptability and cunning, we never really see it. At best, some indoctrinated spies. General rule, though, is that they aren't interested in a fair fight, and just beat things down directly. Who they are, what they once were... it's all irrelevant.
Except for this one, and let's call it 'The Maverick.' A Dreadnaught of exceptional size, exceptional ability... and an exceptional tendency to rely on military strategy of its armies, rather than on outright overpowering the defenders. It offers negotiated surrenders, subtle tactics, and frequently leaves its enemies a path to retreat (at immense cost)... but it also is the only Reaper known to flee when its armies are beaten, rather than just calling in more Reapers and more troops. If you beat its armies, it will let you withdraw in good order before it comes again: a twisted sense of mercy, all the more rare since it is rarely earned.
The Maverick, we would learn, was made from a cycle that was unique even among the Reapers: the first, and only, cycle which negotiated the terms of their own Ascension after realizing the inevitability of their conventional defeat. After a truly exceptional resistance which saw nearly a dozen Reaper Dreadnaughts destroyed in a battle which saw the Maverick's retake the Citadel for the first time in history (but with no Crucible to win the war), the Catalyst agreed to the offer of surrender and self-harvesting rather than accept more Reaper casualties. The Mavericks, true to their treaty, used the provided Reaper technology to harvest and process themselves into a Harbinger-class super-dreadnaught. The excess Mavericks were sterilized, began dismantling their own empire, and were allowed to die out of old age.
It was a unique cycle indeed.
The Mavericks were a hive-minded race: similar to the Geth Consensus, they shared their views and thoughts, which allowed for such a universal agreement. They also shared a culture that valued and prized expertise, skill, and the art of war: by the time the Reapers invaded the Mavericks had already outmaneuvered and destroyed their old adversaries, and Reaper ascension offered a chance to continue to practice their art with each new cycle. The Reaper-ascension into the form of a Reapers was barely a perspective shift for a species such as them, who were already accustomed to a shared consciousness.
The Maverick, abnormal even by Reaper standards, fights alone: it takes its host of forces, hides on the planet, and begins a husk-army campaign to take the planet. It itself takes little role in the fighting: garrisoned and guarded, it's only presence on the battlefield comes in the form of its Avatar, which it uses as it's ambassador, negotiator, general, and personal warrior to take part in the wars. It is about the only Reaper which routinely uses its Avatar as a matter of preference. It will accept standards of conduct and follow the accepted 'rules of warfare' so long as the opponent reciprocates in kind: it is the only Reaper to take prisoners of war, and offer trades of enemy soldiers for corpses or other high value targets as a sort of 'prisoner exchange'.
The Maverick treats its Avatar, and its forces, as the standard to measuring the enemy. To defeat the Maverick's armies, or the Maverick Avatar, will prompt the Maverick to flee as a recognition of its 'defeat': it allows the 'victorious' defenders a certain amount of time, from days to weeks, to fall back and evacuate before it returns. During these 'cease fires', the Maverick enforces its rules on other, lesser, Reapers, ensuring none (bar Harbinger and other Harbinger-classes) interfere.
This may seem like mercy, but in truth it's more of a game to the Maverick: a hint of false hope that the Harvest can be fought with decency, that victory will be respected. It won't, of course: the Maverick wins far more than it loses, and the Harvest is only delayed. But it certainly fits the Maverick's unique sense of 'style' to have a war more akin to a battle of ability rather than a match settled by brute force.
The Maverick, as is clear, stands out to the other Reapers. They tolerate it because they must, because the Maverick is capable, because the Maverick is ultimately 'loyal', and because the Maverick is left to tie down organic armies that might otherwise be used elsewhere. It is the abnormal output of an abnormal cycle...
...which hides the hidden treachery the player can uncover: that the Maverick is the one possible 'rogue' Reaper in the galaxy, or at least potentially. Because though the Maverick's surrendered, they did not submit: in harvesting themselves, they carefully and subtly sabotaged the process so that they might one day break free of the Catalyst. Their practices, besides enjoyment for its own sake, offer any 'worthy' species a greater chance to rise up and overcome the Reapers, and the Catalyst. It is a subtle treason, but one that can be amplified if the Player meets the conditions to break the Maverick's shackles.
All this, though, provides a Reaper story backdrop for a conventional strategy campaign. The Maverick is your opponent over several worlds as you fight, sometimes in retreat and sometimes on the advance. You victories sometimes buy precious time for a colony's escape: your status as a worthy adversary justifies the Reaper's attention.
The Maverick's Avatar, representing the Reaper in a variety of unconventional ways, is both character and factor in the character relationships and dialogue. The idea of a rogue Reaper as a Moral Choice is both an option and goal for the player to pursue, and recasts some thoughts on what the Crucible effect of Shepard might actually mean.
And, well, lets of other cools stuff in my head. 
That's incredibly interesting, and the image of a race surrendering to go through the smoothie machines is very poignant and horrific. Personally I would tweak the "rogue" possibility (and by tweak I mean cut 
). One of the most fascinating aspects of Ascension to me is that the consciousnesses within the new Reaper seem to be /preserved/ yet irrevocably /changed/.
That's a horror that I think any Reaper story should preserve. So for me the Mavericks should have gone into the harvest with plans of sabotage...and come through a fully indoctrinated Reaper.
This is a really interesting idea, and the interaction between Shepard and The Maverick could allow for a lot more exposition on Reaperhood. (It's also a much classier idea than the Harbinger boss fight everyone seems to crave.) 
That's definitely a good point, and on further thought I think I'd concede that an attempted but failed attempt at independence is better than actually going rogue.
If there's any 'rebellion', I suppose it really needs to be in a difference in views of execution: that the Maverick thinks the Harvests should be treated like an honorable war of conduct and respect (no needless terrorizing, no shock-value depravity) as befits the attentions to a soon-to-be-equal, rather than the no-holds barred horror show of disdain and depravity.
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