138 réponses à ce sujet

[kaff33nd]

I'm driven by the mystery of the reapers, and the question of what they are exactly, and also what their grand design might be.  We don't have a lot to work with, but we DO have enough to start some reasonable discussion.  Now, this MUST have been posted before, so I'll apologise now if I'm just repeating old news, but I was hoping to get a think-tank going on trying to work out what the reapers are, what they 'want', and what the collectors are (and how they are related to the reapers.

I want to start by looking at the design of the reapers and go from there. 



The cuttlefish (top) is very similar to Sovereign, but the legs are segmented on Sovereign like the mite (bottom).

I mention this after seeing a YouTube interview where someone (I don't remember who) called the Collectors "insect like creatures".  That suggested to me that they aren't insects, merely insect like. Duh.  But the Reapers are ALSO insect like (in a way) - segmented appendages, exoskeleton etc..  and I wonder if they could somehow be related?

These would be important design references to the art team designing concepts for the Reapers and the Collectors.  They would start with behavior first though, where I have to work backwards.  So what do Cuttlefish and mites have in common?

Cuttlefish
Every year between the months of May and September, thousands of Giant Australian Cuttlefish (Sepia apama) descend on the rocky coastline between Fitzgerald Bay and False Bay.  The migration by these majestic creatures to these waters is for the sole purpose of spawning.
http://www.whyallacu...efish/index.htm

Mitesplay_w2("M0289200")
Any of various very small arachnids of the subclass Acari that often
live as parasites on other animals or plants. Like ticks and unlike
spiders, mites have no division between the cephalothorax and abdomen.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/mite

So one lives in deep sea away from the coast until it needs to spawn, at which time it briefly moves close to the coast en masse for a couple of months every year.  The other is simply a parasite.

Taken this way, and comparing these to the Reapers is very interesting to me personally.  The Reapers live (to my knowlege) in dark space (deep sea) and come into the galaxy every 50,000 years or so to 'harvest' whatever organic life they find.  But why?  What good is an organism to a machine?  It can't eat us because it doesn't have a digestive system.  But what is common to both organic and inorganic life? Carbon? I doubt it's that simple. I really think there are more efficient ways of finding raw materials.  What about processing power? Data processing can be done with either organic or machine 'minds'.  Obviously the 'mind' would have to be converted to an appropriate 'format' first (ie, husks).

So my first theory is that the Reapers developed highly complex 'insect-like' Collectors to 'harvest' formattable processing units (Human/Prothean nervous systems) which are then reformatted into usable 'Husks' to be incorporated into the greater Reaper hive/colony.

And there I shall stop, for now.  Anyone care to share their opinions on this?

[kaff33nd]

Modifié par kaff33nd, 22 janvier 2010 - 05:24 .

[Homebound]

Sovereign reminds me of Cthulhu..But that just might be me. Definitely not bugs though.

[kaff33nd]

Actually I was thinking more of the cuttlefish than the mite. But it does share the hard, segmented exoskeleton of the mite - or even a crustacean. I think maybe you could be right about Cthulhu - or at least his head.



_____________________________________________________________________________

Cthulhu was a creation of H.P. Lovecraft, who via one of his characters said of it and its kind
"They were not composed altogether of flesh and blood. They had
shape...but that shape was not made of matter. When the stars were
right, They could plunge from world to world through the sky; but when
the stars were wrong, They could not live. But although They no longer
lived, They would never really die. They all lay in stone houses in
Their great city of R'lyeh, preserved by the spells of mighty Cthulhu
for a glorious resurrection when the stars and the earth might once
more be ready for Them."

Certainly sounds like a description of the Reapers to me.

Modifié par kaff33nd, 22 janvier 2010 - 05:23 .

[Homebound]

not composed altogether of flesh and blood

When the stars were
right, They could plunge from world to world through the sky; but when
the stars were wrong, They could not live

But although They no longer
lived, They would never really die

Their great city of R'lyeh

R`lyeh. Relay.


Hrmm...

EDIT: CTHULHU FHTAGN!

Modifié par Just_mike, 22 janvier 2010 - 05:26 .

[kaff33nd]

Just_mike wrote...


EDIT: CTHULHU FHTAGN!

Cthulhu waits!

[_Landstradd_]

Okay... and now only if they soon mention H.C. Lovecraft as some kind of deranged prophet warning the return of the reapers, the circle will be complete.

[Akinra]

Maybe ME3 should have Call of Ktulu on the soundtrack

[Dethateer]

Nah, it doesn't go too well with Mass Effect. I tried.

Modifié par Dethateer, 22 janvier 2010 - 06:16 .

[kaff33nd]

I can see SuZe getting into Metallica tho....

Seriously guys, I'd really like to see some heads-down discussion on this topic. Doesn't anyone have any input?

EDIT: It's just occured to me that Shepard may have been wrong in assuming the reapers WERE the hulking ships, and that maybe they are piloting ships, or that they may be wearing suits (the ships) and are in fact disembodied 'spirits' (incomprehensible to humans) whose only means of travel within the physical universe are the vessels that we see as Reapers.

Modifié par kaff33nd, 22 janvier 2010 - 06:37 .

[Madman17]

I no this dosent really follow your theory but my thought was that the reapers maybe started off as organic and became a cyborg race somhow, perhaps like the Quarians (i know they arnt cyborg but they have to wear enviroment suits and rely completly on technology to survive) , they may have been pushed away from society becoming more machine untill aanything organic in them was gone, wiping out all of galactic life. Everytime they come back they only destroy/ enslave technologically advanced races takeing anything of use and erhaps "bolting" it on. I dunno sounded better in my head :S

[kaff33nd]

Madman17 wrote...

I no this dosent really follow your theory but my thought was that the reapers maybe started off as organic and became a cyborg race somhow, perhaps like the Quarians (i know they arnt cyborg but they have to wear enviroment suits and rely completly on technology to survive) , they may have been pushed away from society becoming more machine untill aanything organic in them was gone, wiping out all of galactic life. Everytime they come back they only destroy/ enslave technologically advanced races takeing anything of use and erhaps "bolting" it on. I dunno sounded better in my head :S

That makes sense to me. Especially looking at Legion and how he's already started to evolve on his own, and even incorporated a part of Shepard's armour into himself.  But the question remains: WHY? Why harvest living, intelligent and scientifically advanced organisms and not, say, fungus or cats? Why bother building the spiders' web that is the mass relay system, to trap certain species and not others? What are they doing with us? What's in it for them?

[Madman17]

power maybe? perhaps its just a flaw in their programming or somthing mundane like that. Its abit like farming if you think about it. They leave the younger races to grow to a point when they will actually be a use to them. And as for the relays i think what Sovriegn tells you in ME1 is true. They are there so the galaxy evolves in a way that the reapers can predict and control . Like selective breeding in dogs or somthing, if you breed two german shepards you know what you'l be getting, if you breed a german shepard with a chiwawa god knows what you end up with. Again not sure whether thats the best metaphor but still ...

[kaff33nd]

Okay... Again I see where you're coming from. And I think we agree here. The Reapers, by their very nature are opposed to chaos. Organic life is chaotic, and they (as systematic, ordered systems) cannot stand chaos. It is anathema to them. But these games/stories have a predefined conclusion. A climactic ending would be somewhat anti-climactic if it all came down to old Reaper ladies meeting at the park on weekends to show their Husks.



There has to be something so important to their survivability that they need such a complex trap to get it. They are teaching us... Training us and raising us to a standard, then utterly wiping us out - for a reason that for the moment is elusive to us. They're getting something out of this. That's for sure. I think they need living (organic) brains to add to their processing power. Maybe they need that power the same way Vigil needed power to keep all but the "non essential staff" alive in stasis.

[Shepard needs a Vacation]

Maybe the Reapers were some form of intelligent life and lived for millions of years, slowly integrating nano-robots and other electronics into their bodies and over millions of years of evolution they became part organic part synthetic, and even over more millions of years the synthetic part of the

"Reapers" took hold completely over their bodies and they were no longer organic, thus they gained immortality and turned their "Husks" into the Reaper fleet so they could reside in space, maybe they thought they were gods for a time.

[kaff33nd]

I like that.



This line of discussion has given me another thought. And some of this idea comes from another thread: http://social.biowar...04/index/710056



What if Legion was once human/turian/asari? Maybe he was a quarian who ran off with the geth?

[Dethateer]

You mean, whoever Legion was before, they downloaded their consciousness into a Geth body?

[kaff33nd]

No, I mean over a period of time, someone added appendages and prosthetics until all that's left of him/her is a brain - maybe not even that, but replaced every organ over time.

[Dethateer]

Hmm... possible. Though the pair of small lanterns on Legion's head bother me, they look like eyes and his real one looks like a snout. I like the regular Geth better, they only have one of those things.

[Madman17]

thinking about it that could be what was happening to Saren, ny the end of Mass Effect he has many synthetic implant, the arm being the main one , his eyes and many tubes and stoof leading into his body, perhaps a small hint from bioware?

[kaff33nd]

except he didn't actually change at all... but yeah. That's why I linked the other thread. So does anyone have any paragraph-length thoughts on the matter?

[Homebound]

I myself have asked somewhere on the Mass Effect Wikia on why the Reaper's needed to "harvest" sentient lifeforms...My belief is that like some of the people here already stated, the Reaper's were once organic lifeforms that cyborged themselves to the point that all organic remnants disappeared. To WHY they keep harvesting lifeforms, or WHY they need said lifeforms to advance 50,000 years using their technology is unknown to me.



Perhaps it IS some mundane like a fault in their collective programing. But for sentient machines, that would only contradict itself with the other.

[kaff33nd]

Indeed. I'm reminded of President Eden in Fallout 3 where he says he's Preident because he is infallible... In any case, it seems that the reapers are either locked in an infinite-logic-loop or their 'plans' run deeper than "Eww... icky icky organic life!", or "Hey Sov, buddy, did ya see my awesome Husk collection?".

[Andorfiend]

Well, we've got 36 pages of speculation about the Reapers here on the old site. If you really want some in depth discussion. I also started a group here to dissect the Reapers. See my sig.

[Theramond]

I think "collector" is almost synonymous with the word "reaper." They both essentially mean the same thing. Anyways, perhaps they need lifeforms as they are a source of energy, like the machines in the Matrix.