138 réponses à ce sujet

[DZX Dachande]

That is true, but there are, what, 100 billion stars in our galaxy? How many of them would have planets orbiting them? That's one hell of a search and destroy mission to undertake, even for immortal machines! From an efficiency point of view it is far easier to provide the means for sentient beings to gather around 'hot spots' a certain points in the galaxy, wait for them to congregate and wipe out the vast majority in one fell swoop. Meanwhile indoctrination would be an effective means of locating and mopping up any survivors. I'm not necessarily saying they simply kill everything really, I'm sure they have some fiendish reason for virtually erasing entire civilizations, I'm just not sure what that reason is. Sovereign made it pretty clear that they were above us and that they were beyond our comprehension, so maybe their reason is beyond our reasoning. I'm not sure that last sentence made any sense. Hmm... Yep, my brain hurts now! lol!

[Dethateer]

You're forgetting the Prothean outpost on Mars got slaughtered, and Mars is... kinda close to Earth. So there is no excuse whatsoever for Earth, at least, to have survived.

[DZX Dachande]

Well there was an excuse obviously, because our planet was left untouched! lol! The Protheans were the only space faring species around 50,000 years ago, it says that in ME1, so it's understandable that they were a target even if the reason isn't apparent. But why didn't they touch Earth? It has to be either because there was no immediate threat from our world, or no value, which I've already said in previous posts. So, any ideas as to which it would be and why? I have to say I'm at a bit of a loss on that point.

[Dethateer]

You're at a loss because there isn't any reason. The Protheans had metric ****-tons of info on an early sapient species, data which the Reapers could have easily accessed. And even if they hadn't, a planet incapable of supporting life might become capable one day, but it you want to delay the advent of life, then it would make sense to turn it into a burning wasteland while you're there, just to delay things a bit more.

[Zaxares]

Exactly, Dethateet. If the Reapers' ultimate goal is the extinction of all organic life... Why would they bother leaving ANY habitable planet intact? The logical, most efficient method would be to scour the galaxy and eradicate any planet that could even remotely have the potential for organic life.



And why bother waiting for the organic races to develop spacefaring capability and advanced weaponry? Why would you wait for your enemy to develop their technology to a point where they could conceivably be a threat to you?



The fact that the Reapers seem content to let organic life evolve to such a level before stepping in suggests that they're doing this for some reason that's as yet unknown to us, or perhaps even unfathomable by organic races. (Barring a 'we do this for ****s and giggles!' answer. >.>)

[Dethateer]

I hope you simply hit "t" instead of "r" by accident over there...

*ahem*

The "for ****s 'n' giggles" answer would fit in with what Sovereign said about us being unable to understand. Though I'd say quite a few members of the various penal systems across the planet would identify rather well with Mr. Egomania...

[Zaxares]

Oops. Yeah, that was a typo. Sorry. XD



Still, even if the Reapers WERE just doing it as a form of entertainment to occupy their eternal existences, leisure is still a concept organic races can understand. I hope Bioware comes up with a good answer for this in ME3, but I have the feeling that they'll just take the easy way out and leave it unanswered.

[Hyper Cutter]

Dethateer wrote...

That still doesn't explain why Terra (which had a more than flourishing ecosystem) and the homeworlds of the current Citadel species (which likely had at least primitive civilizations) were left alone. Exterminating the biospheres of such planets would delay the advent of life even more.

You're assuming that's what they want. What we see is a cycle of wiping out the established Citadel race(s), strip-mining their civilization in the process, then waiting for new species to rise up and take their place so they can be cut down in turn.

There's a word for this sort of thing: sustainable harvest.

[Homebound]

Bioware explains why Reapers need sentient life.





Imagine life as lego pieces, and the Reapers as lego blocks.



The reapers need to harvest lego pieces so they can make lego blocks.

[Dethateer]

Hyper Cutter wrote...

You're assuming that's what they want. What we see is a cycle of wiping out the established Citadel race(s), strip-mining their civilization in the process, then waiting for new species to rise up and take their place so they can be cut down in turn.

There's a word for this sort of thing: sustainable harvest.

If you would have bothered reading any of the other guy's posts, you would have figured out that I meant that in the context he proposed, to point out that it didn't make sense.

[DZX Dachande]

What use is it to go around destroying planets just because it has primitive life on it? I conceded the fact that they probably have some other goal than just simply killing. Why bother to indoctrinate when they could just oblitterate from orbit? Reapers must have the technology and know how to gather raw materials, engineer and manufacture organic life if they can make something as complex and far reaching as the mass relay system, so why the hell do they need to harvest a bunch of relatively primitive monkeys/reptiles/insects/whatever? It obviously wasn't for the technology because the Protheans and every species since then never managed to reach the level of advancement that the Reapers had acomplished.

[Dethateer]

Not reaching the same level =/= inventing something they already have.

The Reapers, being synthetic, are the apogee of order, unable to evolve by themselves. So they could rely on the impredictability of organic life for technological advancements.

[kaff33nd]

I think it's time to resurrect this thread. As a note, Earth was left untouched because humans weren't quite at the level of advancement that the Reapers harvest. "And at the apex of their glory, they are extinguished." - Sovereign. We simply weren't at the apex yet.

[kaff33nd]

Necromancy FTW!

Now that the conclusion is upon us, where do we stand on this topic? Are the Reapers (as I have said many a time before) actually instruments of benevolence? I haven't picked up the game yet.