Unlike in most other fictional universes, the planets in the MEU have no form of protection. One could just do some math and annihilate cities with ease from the other side of the galaxy.
The Reapers have a huge weakness in this aspect, as their focus is to make grey/shiny orange goo to make a new Reaper.
I just assumed as cycles progressed, intelligence and technology lessened or wasn't advanced as previous cycles. I mean the protheans had beacons and are able to read someone's physiology by one touch. I assumed our cycle wasn't as advanced as the previous cycles which is why our harvest wasn't as long as the prothean's and I'm sure the prothean's weren't as long as the previous cycle before them.
You might be right. Intelligence and technology might have lessened with every cycle.
At the very least, the civilizations that were manipulated by the Reapers, became more and more resistant to the 'experiment' in their own ways.
I wouldn't be surprised if the first 'cycle's pawns' were barely resistant to the Reapers due to their worship of the Leviathans.
I don't see how the second paragraph follows from the first. Organics are dependent on their planets. The Reapers are not.
It would be incredibly easy for them to end all life by just taking potshots from dark space.
They can't. They actually are dependent on planets;
I understand the difference between wiping out an entire race, and complete military victory. The problem here is the game implying towards the end that the Reapers were already close to completing their harvest, at least for the humans.
Completing the harvest = storing enough liquified humans into Reaper form. That takes only few million with EDI's estimates, they don't need entire population of billions
It would be incredibly easy for them to end all life by just taking potshots from dark space.
They can't. They actually are dependent on planets;
Well they could just Matrix farm people.
But they want people thinking, growing, changing, learning, expanding.
Just not beyond their boundaries.
It would be incredibly easy for them to end all life by just taking potshots from dark space.
They can't. They actually are dependent on planets;
Destroying a races military will take a lot less time then harvesting every single individual of a species.
And the Protheans were technologically far superior to this cycle
Considering the number of habitable planets in the galaxy, terraformed into that condition or otherwise, the damage inflicted to one in the course of a Reaper harvest (one world in ME2's galaxy map is described as being bombarded to the point where only bacteria survived), and the time it takes for intelligent life to evolve, 50,000 seems like far, far too little time between cycles. Hell, count in the damage done by non-Reaper aliens to various planets (Javik talks about burning hundreds of worlds to contain the Rachni) and I'd be surprised if the galaxy produced a single space-faring race every twenty cycles.
Gotta wonder how often a Reaper cycle consists of their vanguard poking up its head, seeing the Citadel is still dormant, and hitting the snooze alarm.
lol that's a funny thought
Wait, I'm personifying Reapers. Bad Swoby!
Soooo ... do you feel better getting that off your chest and talking it out with the minds of the BSN?
You have attracted the attention of those infinitely your greater. Prepare for your ascension.
Considering the number of habitable planets in the galaxy, terraformed into that condition or otherwise, the damage inflicted to one in the course of a Reaper harvest (one world in ME2's galaxy map is described as being bombarded to the point where only bacteria survived), and the time it takes for intelligent life to evolve, 50,000 seems like far, far too little time between cycles. Hell, count in the damage done by non-Reaper aliens to various planets (Javik talks about burning hundreds of worlds to contain the Rachni) and I'd be surprised if the galaxy produced a single space-faring race every twenty cycles.
Gotta wonder how often a Reaper cycle consists of their vanguard poking up its head, seeing the Citadel is still dormant, and hitting the snooze alarm.
*lol*
...
But remember the reapers tend to ignore less advanced sentient species and non-sentient life.
It's estimated that there are 100 billion planets in the milky way, possibly with trillions of rogue planets between stars. There could be as many as 40 billion earthlike planets orbiting sun like stars and red dwarf stars (the last is show to be habitable in mass effect, in reality they might not allways be). Still leaving around 11 billion earth analogues around sun like stars.
In the mass effect universe there are examples of life being able to survive space and travel as spores between planets. I'm guessing life will exist many many many places and that means a relatively high chance of intelligent life appearing.
If we go by the number of 40 billion planets and suppose the reapers attack an average of 1000 planets each cycle that leaves room for 40 million cycles over 2 trillion years. Ten times as long as they've been doing it so far.
If red dwarves a habitable it's not a problem, for while sun like stars only live an estimated 8-10 billion years, red dwarf stars might live for many trillions of years. Perhaps up to 10 trillion years for the lowest mass ones.
99 % of the human race lives on Earth. Since the Reapers control Earth....
Come to think of it, the game is explicit that Earth will still take several years to harvest. I don't actually know what you're talking about here.
Except there's dialogue that contradict that notion. That's part of my problem with this game's writing, it felt like all the writers weren't on the same page. Even the tone is different for the Reaper War when you read the codex entries. In cutscenes you see Reapers pretty much tank everything the ships throw at them, but in Codex entries there are logs that explain certain battles where fleets were destroying Reaper Capital Ships conventionally.
The other thing is the difference between extermination and harvest. Obviously harvest means collecting enough of a species to blend them up into pulpy orange juice which for some reason makes a new reaper, but the way characters like Leviathan and Vendetta were written, it sounds like their definition of harvest means extermination.
There's a lot of things that make it feel as if the writers weren't as organized as they should've been.
I kinda developed the opinion that the Protheans were far more advanced than 'our' civilization. Perhaps this was facilitated by their sensory touch ability, I dunno.
But they fought the reapers for over a hundred years, all the while having their civilization "smashed to pieces" from the reapers taking the citadel in the beginning. And yet, despite that, the protheans came up with a few ways to fight, and their efforts were crucial to our success.
They were building their own crucible but were defeated before they could use it. Still they made sure we had a copy of the plans. They found a way to disrupt the keeper signal which bought us some time, and allowed us to save the citadel. They even had a backup plan where they would rise a million strong and prepare the civilizations of this cycle -- which they cultivated to an extent -- to fight reapers again. They failed but they just as easily might not have.
Pretty impressive when you think about how, in ME3, we're -- as players -- beaten over the head all the time with how we're being defeated by the reapers, and how close we came to losing.
My point is it's no wonder the protheans fought for so long. They were capable of it, even after starting in a worse position than we did.
Having said that this cycle is different because we weren't united. We had to be made to cooperate first. I think that's a huge part of it. Not to mention we couldn't even agree that there was a problem to prepare for.
Well that's the other thing I have to question. Considering the Reapers used the Conduit in the Prothean cycle, the Protheans had to be faaaaaaaaar more advanced than us, if they were able to still put up a good fight for a helluva lot longer than we did.
The fact that the Reapers are attacking Earth, Palaven and Thessia in ME3 does not mean the war would be over soon, even without the Prothean device. It's entirely feasible that it would take years or decades before the Reapers would win this war. Remember that the Reapers do not stop until every single living being they know of, from every single space-faring galactic civilization they know of, is either harvested or killed. The galaxy is a bti place, even for the Reaper armada. And even though the Reapers seem to be able to detect any hideout of organics in the entire galaxy, it takes them a while to do so.
Add to that the fact that the Prothean civilization was so many times more advanced than the humans, turians, salarians or even the asari of this cycle, and it's not that surprising at all that the Protheans held out for about a century. That may seem like a long time to us, yes. But for a Reaper that just lay dormant in dark space for 50,000 years, a century more or less is nothing.
Except there's dialogue that contradict that notion.
The other thing is the difference between extermination and harvest. Obviously harvest means collecting enough of a species to blend them up into pulpy orange juice which for some reason makes a new reaper, but the way characters like Leviathan and Vendetta were written, it sounds like their definition of harvest means extermination.
The fact that the Reapers are attacking Earth, Palaven and Thessia in ME3 does not mean the war would be over soon, even without the Prothean device. It's entirely feasible that it would take years or decades before the Reapers would win this war. Remember that the Reapers do not stop until every single living being they know of, from every single space-faring galactic civilization they know of, is either harvested or killed. The galaxy is a bti place, even for the Reaper armada. And even though the Reapers seem to be able to detect any hideout of organics in the entire galaxy, it takes them a while to do so.
Add to that the fact that the Prothean civilization was so many times more advanced than the humans, turians, salarians or even the asari of this cycle, and it's not that surprising at all that the Protheans held out for about a century. That may seem like a long time to us, yes. But for a Reaper that just lay dormant in dark space for 50,000 years, a century more or less is nothing.
I honestly think part of the problem too is that Bioware wrote the Reapers to be too powerful. Back in Mass Effect 1 it was pretty awesome and scary that they were so powerful, because it left you thinking how we're going to stand up to them. But from a video game perspective, it just made things frustrating. One of my most hated scenes is the Sword Fleet Cutscene. Yeah, the biggest scene in the game is my most hated. That cutscene was the culmination of all your hard work, and yet it felt very underwhelming. It was epic as hell seeing the fleets arrival via the Mass Relay. It was the largest fleet the galaxy had ever witnessed, and when they all simultaneously fired upon the Reaper fleet, I'd be surprised if nobody at least yelled "HELL YEA!" in their heads. But then you see the Reapers just stroll through the bombardment like it's nothing, and my excitement instantly went away. I went from like a 10 to a 2 in a split second.
I think they should've kept the Reapers powerful, but in the end I think they made them too powerful.
Is there? Which dialogue are you referring to? I've never heard it.
Vendetta: "The Reapers are preparing to complete their harvest of your species."
If you're preparing to complete something, that heavily implies you're almost done with it. I wouldn't say I'm preparing to complete my 10 page essay when I've only gotten 1 page done.
I honestly think part of the problem too is that Bioware wrote the Reapers to be too powerful. Back in Mass Effect 1 it was pretty awesome and scary that they were so powerful, because it left you thinking how we're going to stand up to them. But from a video game perspective, it just made things frustrating. One of my most hated scenes is the Sword Fleet Cutscene. Yeah, the biggest scene in the game is my most hated. That cutscene was the culmination of all your hard work, and yet it felt very underwhelming. It was epic as hell seeing the fleets arrival via the Mass Relay. It was the largest fleet the galaxy had ever witnessed, and when they all simultaneously fired upon the Reaper fleet, I'd be surprised if nobody at least yelled "HELL YEA!" in their heads. But then you see the Reapers just stroll through the bombardment like it's nothing, and my excitement instantly went away. I went from like a 10 to a 2 in a split second.
I think they should've kept the Reapers powerful, but in the end I think they made them too powerful.
Doesn't help that ME is a 3rd person cover shooter; you're not exactly going to pop out of cover to shoot a two-kilometer long monstrosity with your assault rifle. From the beginning ME introduced a tension between story and gameplay that, while not unsolvable, was not in fact solved by the end of the series.
I wouldn't say I'm preparing to complete my 10 page essay when I've only gotten 1 page done.
Heh. Brings back memories of college.
Anyway, "preparations" to complete something are not indicative that it's almost done, only that it's switching phases.
Doesn't help that ME is a 3rd person cover shooter; you're not exactly going to pop out of cover to shoot a two-kilometer long monstrosity with your assault rifle. From the beginning ME introduced a tension between story and gameplay that, while not unsolvable, was not in fact solved by the end of the series.
We know from what we read from the Codex entries that Capital Ships can be destroyed conventionally, so it wouldn't have been lore breaking to show Sword Fleet kick some major A at least for the beginning of the battle. I've had a person ask me before would it really have made that much of a difference if they showed you a few Capital Ships get destroyed, and honestly, yeah it would. I knew we couldn't win conventionally, but if they had showed Sword Fleet actually take down a good portion of the Reaper fleet at Earth, I would've felt a lot more satisfied with that battle. At least then I would've seen some of my work pay off. Showing is more effective than telling.
Heh. Brings back memories of college.
Anyway, "preparations" to complete something are not indicative that it's almost done.
You say that AS you related to the 10 page essay example from your college days.
In all seriousness, of course it does. Vendetta should've said "The Reapers continue to harvest your species by the hour" or something like that.
Using the word "complete" when it's only been no more than 2-3 months, doesn't make a lot of sense.
Retour en haut
