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[ImaginaryMatter]

Not at all, even though, admittedly, I do think the fanboyism is humorous. It's closer to what Alan stated:

 

 

... along with the fact that the original writer's touted ending concept made the Reapers indisputably noble, instead of debatably noble.  The topic of this thread.

 

Don't understand why that's not relevant to your comment about what Sovereign's speech purported, or "really stretching it thin", considering Drew's the origin and very easily could have been the lead writer for the entire series. 

 

Because I was talking about something that was actually in the game (Sovereign's speech), not a idea expressed in some news article. And that's ignoring anything about authorial intent.

[AlanC9]

Seems to me there's an obvious fourth option that's being overlooked here, which is that the Reapers have a knowable but entirely ignoble purpose: The harvest is somehow in their self-interest, and that's that. For instance, perhaps it somehow allows them to remain effectively immortal, and in their estimation, billions of organics are worth nothing in comparison to even one Reaper, so let's harvest away.

The obvious problem there is that the Reapers don't practice sensible organic farming.... er, farming of organics. Slash-and-burn is not very efficient, and letting organics develop technology is demonstrably dangerous.

[dgcatanisiri]

Not particularly, but then, I preferred the idea that we'd never find out what the Reapers purpose was at all. That they consider themselves so far apart from us that they wouldn't deign to explain it. How often do we stop to chat with the ants? We just have to deal with them for the sake of our own survival. Let the Reapers be the Reapers and do what they do, and we just try to make sense of it.

 

Part of that is just that... Really, there was no way to pay it off in any kind of satisfactory manner. The Reapers had been hyped to a point that they really weren't going to be stopped by anything that didn't reek 'plot device' and 'deus ex machina incoming.' Part of that is the BS regarding motivation - they claim to be motivated by that which is 'beyond [our] comprehension,' but there's really no such thing. Motivation is why you do what you are doing. The REASONING behind that motivation, the logic that lead to the conclusion that this is what needs to be done, might be so completely alien we can't get our mind around it, but motivation? That's simple.

[dreamgazer]

Because I was talking about something that was actually in the game (Sovereign's speech), not a idea expressed in some news article. And that's ignoring anything about authorial intent.

 

Sorry, but that doesn't make his documented comments irrelevant in terms of the path the series was headed, which was towards a noble purpose. 

 

That's what was going on in the mind of the person who wrote the crucial part of the narrative that you're referencing, which also mentioned that they "impose order on the chaos of organic evolution", already a hook for a worthwhile agenda alongside the usage of the relays they created. 

[angol fear]

 they claim to be motivated by that which is 'beyond [our] comprehension,' but there's really no such thing. 

 

Sovereign: There is a realm of existence so far beyond your own you cannot even imagine it. I am beyond your comprehension. I am Sovereign.

[Excella Gionne]

They're goal is noble, I think, but it's the irony of it all that makes it very stupid.

[SporkFu]

The Leviathan designed the catalyst to find a way to stop synthetics from killing organics because "tribute does not flow from a dead race" (or something like that). Selfishness was the guiding motivation behind the catalyst's creation, behind the reapers' creation. 

 

Creating the Citadel and the mass Relays to speed the time between cycles for efficiency, indoctrination, genetic modification, enslavement, fear, destruction, despair... these are the reapers' tools, and they all show an utter lack of empathy for organic life. 

 

There's no nobility in anything to do with them. I just want them gone. 

 

Damn, I think I've just committed to the red ending. 

[Excella Gionne]

The Leviathan designed the catalyst to find a way to stop synthetics from killing organics because "tribute does not flow from a dead race" (or something like that). Selfishness was the guiding motivation behind the catalyst's creation, behind the reapers' creation. 

 

Creating the Citadel and the mass Relays to speed the time between cycles for efficiency, indoctrination, genetic modification, enslavement, fear, destruction, despair... these are the reapers' tools, and they all show an utter lack of empathy for organic life. 

 

There's no nobility in anything to do with them. I just want them gone. 

 

Damn, I think I've just committed to the red ending. 

Synthesis! Add your swag to the crucible!

[Excella Gionne]

The Leviathan designed the catalyst to find a way to stop synthetics from killing organics because "tribute does not flow from a dead race" (or something like that). Selfishness was the guiding motivation behind the catalyst's creation, behind the reapers' creation. 

 

Creating the Citadel and the mass Relays to speed the time between cycles for efficiency, indoctrination, genetic modification, enslavement, fear, destruction, despair... these are the reapers' tools, and they all show an utter lack of empathy for organic life. 

 

There's no nobility in anything to do with them. I just want them gone. 

 

Damn, I think I've just committed to the red ending. 

All in all, they were created for the purpose to find a solution that will resolve the conflict between organics and synthetics. If it takes several cycles of failures to reach a solution better than their own, so be it, they say. The hard truth is an inevitable truth. Organics will create some sort of synthetic life form that will eventually be the root of organic extinction. So many movies portray such a future of such, but when you think about it, it has some truth in it.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

They're goal is noble, I think, but it's the irony of it all that makes it very stupid.

 

By wiping out organic life?

 

No, we preserve advanced organic civilizations in reaper form leaving the younger ones alone just as we left yours alone the last time we were through.

 

[Excella Gionne]

By wiping out organic life?

 

No, we preserve advanced organic civilizations in reaper form leaving the younger ones alone just as we left yours alone the last time we were through.

 

 

I guess they're trying to see if there will be some sort of difference with each cycle, but all organic life has proven to move in only one way instead. Of course, this is intentional as said by Sovereign.

[Farangbaa]

They don't have a noble goal?

Oh.

[SporkFu]

All in all, they were created for the purpose to find a solution that will resolve the conflict between organics and synthetics. If it takes several cycles of failures to reach a solution better than their own, so be it, they say. The hard truth is an inevitable truth. Organics will create some sort of synthetic life form that will eventually be the root of organic extinction. So many movies portray such a future of such, but when you think about it, it has some truth in it.

That's what gets me. Sure the geth rebelled, sure there was war, and sure the quarians lost their homeworld to synthetics, but three hundred years later shep can forge peace between them. Could that have been possible without the reaper upgrades? Who knows. It's implied that the quarians would have wiped the geth out... but maybe not. Thanks to the reapers, we'll never know. Seems to me that, if left alone, the geth would have been more than happy to have nothing to do with anyone else in the galaxy, to simply build their own future. 

 

By wiping out organic life?

 

No, we preserve advanced organic civilizations in reaper form leaving the younger ones alone just as we left yours alone the last time we were through.

 

Best video. 

  

[Excella Gionne]

That's what gets me. Sure the geth rebelled, sure there was war, and sure the quarians lost their homeworld to synthetics, but three hundred years later shep can forge peace between them. Could that have been possible without the reaper upgrades? Who knows. It's implied that the quarians would have wiped the geth out... but maybe not. Thanks to the reapers, we'll never know. Seems to me that, if left alone, the geth would have been more than happy to have nothing to do with anyone else in the galaxy, to simply build their own future. 

 

The whole thing with reaper code upgrades has always been very messy, and I'd rather not talk about the whole mess of it or else my vacuum might clog and I'll have to go buy a new one with a little less crap in it from the thrift store.  

 

I mean, I could see why Legion would have wanted the reaper upgrades in contradiction to his ME2 explanation of the geth wanting their own ideal future that has nothing to do with the geth wanting sentience. I guess a synthetic wouldn't understand what it feels like to have sentience until they actually experience. Even though it was forced on the geth, Legion was the only platform that was somehow unaffected by the control of the Reapers. The upgrades didn't make him experience multiple emotions at once, it kind of developed along the way.

[Massa FX]

I was fine with what we had IF Shepard could have personally destroyed the child AI for it was (to me) spouting nonsense. Also, I wanted to personally bring down Harbinger.

 

So, I guess I was ok with the Reaper purpose being preservation of life to prevent it's extinction at the hands of synthetics because the AI programming was flawed. But, I wanted to do more than shoot the tube to stop the madness. (the other options are not my cup of tea)

 

note: my words above come after much reflection and a couple years distance from the original endings. When the game first released, I was inconsolable and incapable of being ok with any portion of the endings.

[angol fear]

No.

 

I want their purpose to be something to be something for which a gamer could have no clear answer to as whether it was virtuous or devious. I wanted their goal to be based off of blue-and-orange-morality, based on an entirely alien sense of logic and morality. There's a lot more to inscrutability than being something to terrifying or unknowable. 

 

Maybe the Reapers want to destroy the galaxy because you only bake Shepard's Pie on Tuesdays.

 

It makes sense, if you're a Reaper.

If you consider that most people can't accept the catalyst logic and most people hate the concept, you must be happy because Bioware succeed in doing what you wanted. They wanted to get to a high level of perception, they did it with highest level of thinking : paradox.

[SporkFu]

The whole thing with reaper code upgrades has always been very messy, and I'd rather not talk about the whole mess of it or else my vacuum might clog and I'll have to go buy a new one with a little less crap in it from the thrift store.

 

I mean, I could see why Legion would have wanted the reaper upgrades in contradiction to his ME2 explanation of the geth wanting their own ideal future that has nothing to do with the geth wanting sentience. I guess a synthetic wouldn't understand what it feels like to have sentience until they actually experience. Even though it was forced on the geth, Legion was the only platform that was somehow unaffected by the control of the Reapers. The upgrades didn't make him experience multiple emotions at once, it kind of developed along the way.

Well, I was thinking more along the lines of peace being forged between the geth and quarians, contrary to the catalyst's claims that synthetics will always destroy organics. That's why the reaper's line of, "the battle for rannoch disproves your assertion." Uhh, no it doesn't. Our cycle proved him wrong. 

 

But... would peace have been possible if the geth didn't get the reaper upgrades? Maybe, maybe not. 

[JasonShepard]

Honestly? I was happy with the cycles just being a method of reproduction, ala ME2. I didn't need more explanation, or purpose, to the Reapers than that. I certainly didn't need their origins explained down to the last detail.

[angol fear]

Honestly? I was happy with the cycles just being a method of reproduction, ala ME2. I didn't need more explanation, or purpose, to the Reapers than that. I certainly didn't need their origins explained down to the last detail.

But the problem is that reproduction is an organic concept. It doesn't make sense for synthetics. This idea needed a real motivation behind to be coherent.

[JasonShepard]

But the problem is that reproduction is an organic concept. It doesn't make sense for synthetics. This idea needed a real motivation behind to be coherent.

 

And the Reapers were neither organic nor synthetic, they were both. I also didn't need a full motivation spelled out to me, since I was happy for that aspect of them to remain mysterious.

[Excella Gionne]

Well, I was thinking more along the lines of peace being forged between the geth and quarians, contrary to the catalyst's claims that synthetics will always destroy organics. That's why the reaper's line of, "the battle for rannoch disproves your assertion." Uhh, no it doesn't. Our cycle proved him wrong. 

 

But... would peace have been possible if the geth didn't get the reaper upgrades? Maybe, maybe not. 

It's always something that goes wrong that starts the entire thing about synthetics killing all organics.

 

Maybe peace is very possible without the reaper upgrades, but I think we'll always have some quarian out there that wants to exterminate them or a minority of the geth that disagrees with the peace. That is perfectly normal, but I only see a temporary peace at most. Regarding all other matters, the crucible would either ensure that the Reapers will be superior synthetics or the geth perish along with all other synthetics. I sort of feel like the whole rannoch arc was a load of B.S. when I have to consider the endings.

[Excella Gionne]

But the problem is that reproduction is an organic concept. It doesn't make sense for synthetics. This idea needed a real motivation behind to be coherent.

Those tiny geth babies are so cute!  

[angol fear]

And the Reapers were neither organic nor synthetic, they were both. I also didn't need a full motivation spelled out to me, since I was happy for that aspect of them to remain mysterious.

They are both but they think like synthetics. Take a look at Sovereign speech and his perception of time. Take a look at what Javik says about the perception of time of synthetics. You can like it but it actually doesn't make sense for the reapers to kill to reproduce themselves because they don't feel time as organics do. Reproduction is a reaction of a feeling that we will die. Synthetics don't feel that they will die.

[CosmicGnosis]

I wonder how often I'm gonna have to repeat this point: The Catalyst itself is an example of the kind of thing that it's trying to prevent; it's a synthetic that has managed to seize control of the galaxy. However, this particular synthetic wants to preserve organic life, not destroy it. It's actually stated several times that the Reapers are holding back. We never see their full power. The Reapers are harvesting, not outright destroying. So we are "lucky" that the Catalyst wants to save organic life from total annihilation. 

 

So again, please understand this: the galaxy fell into synthetic hands a billion years ago. 

 

And take note of this quote from Javik:

 

"We were turning the tide until the Reapers arrived. Then we understood that machines had surpassed us long ago in ways we could never imagine."

 

All it takes is one synthetic to decide that organic life must be eliminated. It could be for any reason, maybe even a legitimate one. The Catalyst was one synthetic that decided to preserve organic life, but as we can all agree, there is a fine line between "salvation" and destruction. 

[SwobyJ]

Did you want the Reapers to have a "noble" purpose? That is, did you want the ultimate goal of the Reapers to be something "good", but the problem was their misguided method of solving it?

 

Or did you want the Reapers to have no purpose? Did you want them to be straightforward monsters with no compelling reason for doing what they did?

 

Or did you want the Reapers to have a purpose, but have it forever remain a secret? Perhaps a few hints as to what their goal was, but only enough to prevent them from being simple monsters?

 

Its all 3.

 

Personally, I always saw them as giant, awe-inspiring machines. That never really changed. Everything they did AS machines didn't matter as much.