228 réponses à ce sujet

[Cheviot]

The reason why the Reapers don't attack the Citadel is because it was no longer secure after the Keepers' signal was scrambled, plus they'd lost the element of surprise and they couldn't launch their offensive from there as usual.  So, since they would have to go through the galaxy to reach it anyway, they changed their plan: instead of cutting galactic civilization off at the head (the Citadel), they would cut it off at the limbs by overwhelming the most powerful military forces in turn, while at the same time using indoctrinated agents (Cerberus) to eventually gain control of the Citadel and bring the Keepers back under their power.  This has the added bonus that survivors would head for the Citadel anyway, increasing the harvest when they do get control of it.

 

There's also the possibility that the Reapers might have been scared.  Imagine if you believed you were part of a race of eternal and immortal beings. Imagine the shock when one of your race died.  This may explain why they left the corpses of dead Reapers floating in space where they died.

[Gonder]

The Reapers would not require an element of surprise in any sort of way in order to completely annihilate the Citadel's defences with ease. Most of the fleets that had been initially patrolling the airspace flew off to aid in the war over their own homeworlds. This leaves the strongest force on the Citadel to most likely C-Sec, a police force, which would stand absolutely no chance against the Reaper armada. The Cerberus coup is clear proof that the Citadel was more than vulnerable if the Reapers actually decided to make the effort to fly on over there, which I still honestly do not understand why they did not focus on as their very first priority, whether or not the Citadel Relay activated.

 

Regardless, by the time they did reach the Citadel, it fell almost instantly, and they dragged the entire thing to Earth, which, let me just add, is still bizarre to think about. Imagine Mass Effect 4 as a sequel (I'm hearing rumours of it taking place during Shepard's lifetime), the Citadel being as crucial of a hub as the last trilogy, though having it constantly hovering over Earth? I hope they figure out how to move it back, because as great as Earth is and all (not really), I much preferred that mystical, purple mist that Widow system in the Serpent Nebula gave out, as it added to the true, grand scale and mystery of the Citadel as a whole.

[Iakus]

The reason why the Reapers don't attack the Citadel is because it was no longer secure after the Keepers' signal was scrambled, plus they'd lost the element of surprise and they couldn't launch their offensive from there as usual.  So, since they would have to go through the galaxy to reach it anyway, they changed their plan: instead of cutting galactic civilization off at the head (the Citadel), they would cut it off at the limbs by overwhelming the most powerful military forces in turn, while at the same time using indoctrinated agents (Cerberus) to eventually gain control of the Citadel and bring the Keepers back under their power.  This has the added bonus that survivors would head for the Citadel anyway, increasing the harvest when they do get control of it.

 

There's also the possibility that the Reapers might have been scared.  Imagine if you believed you were part of a race of eternal and immortal beings. Imagine the shock when one of your race died.  This may explain why they left the corpses of dead Reapers floating in space where they died.

 

Even without the element of surprise, teh Citadel should stil have been a major target.  Capturing the Citadel would have secured the relay network.  The Reapers could then send forces wherever they liked, leaving the various species' militaries cut off from each other.  No effective counteroffensive could have been mounted.

 

And the Citadel was not all that far out of the way.  At least by ME3.  The Reapers hit Earth, and that's just two relay jumps form the Citadel (Charon to Arcturus to the Citadel)

 

Plus, the Council was still based at the Citadel.  Decapitation of the government was still a viable possibility.  Heck Cerberus was moments away from doing just that without Reaper backup.

[bunch1]

I don't feel like reading this whole thread so forgive me if I say something that has already been stated.

 

Honestly I don't think it's that hard to come up with an in-universe explanation for why they don't attack the citadel.  Without the ability to access relay control through the keepers and shut down the network any attack on the citadel at the start of the war would have turned into a pitched battle that the reapers don't want.  We see that while they were able to overwhelm the Alliance fleet fairly easily they were unable to do the same to the Turian fleet and even weeks later were unable to secure their home system which means organics can resist them through conventional means.  So if they attacked the Citidel but it clamped up before they got in then they would be stuck pounding on those nearly impenetrable walls while despite messages were sent to gather all the human, turian, asari, and salarian fleets for a pitched battle at the citadel. 

 

The reapers may have won that battle, but the loss of so many ships while still being left out of the citadel would have made it a bit pointless.  And while they maintained a siege and hoped that the organics didn't start planting crops their allies would be rebuilding and preparing for the next assault.  Which would mean the reapers would have to divide their forces to launch attacks against enemy main worlds just as they do in the begging of ME 3, except they wouldn't have the element of surprise, fewer ships to spread around may mean less targets, and lost transports may mean less ground troops to dump on those worlds.

 

I'm not saying this is how it would have happened, but the reapers are playing the long game and if they thought the odds were better avoiding the citadel and directly attacking the human and turian worlds then that is what they would do. 

 

Remember to, this has never happened before.  The reapers have always come through the citadel and shut down the network, this galactic invasion is as new to them as it is everyone else and they may be playing careful.

[Iakus]

I don't feel like reading this whole thread so forgive me if I say something that has already been stated.

 

Honestly I don't think it's that hard to come up with an in-universe explanation for why they don't attack the citadel.  Without the ability to access relay control through the keepers and shut down the network any attack on the citadel at the start of the war would have turned into a pitched battle that the reapers don't want.  We see that while they were able to overwhelm the Alliance fleet fairly easily they were unable to do the same to the Turian fleet and even weeks later were unable to secure their home system which means organics can resist them through conventional means.  So if they attacked the Citidel but it clamped up before they got in then they would be stuck pounding on those nearly impenetrable walls while despite messages were sent to gather all the human, turian, asari, and salarian fleets for a pitched battle at the citadel. 

 

The reapers may have won that battle, but the loss of so many ships while still being left out of the citadel would have made it a bit pointless.  And while they maintained a siege and hoped that the organics didn't start planting crops their allies would be rebuilding and preparing for the next assault.  Which would mean the reapers would have to divide their forces to launch attacks against enemy main worlds just as they do in the begging of ME 3, except they wouldn't have the element of surprise, fewer ships to spread around may mean less targets, and lost transports may mean less ground troops to dump on those worlds.

 

I'm not saying this is how it would have happened, but the reapers are playing the long game and if they thought the odds were better avoiding the citadel and directly attacking the human and turian worlds then that is what they would do. 

 

Remember to, this has never happened before.  The reapers have always come through the citadel and shut down the network, this galactic invasion is as new to them as it is everyone else and they may be playing careful.

And yet, they were able to capture the Citadel, close it up , and move it to Earth  then they really wanted to.

 

Why should they care if this draws the other races?  As everyone keeps saying, "they can't be beaten conventionally".  They're at their strongest in a head-on confrontation.  The fleets of the galaxy vs 20,000 Sovereign-class ships and 100k destroyers?  Bring it!

[ImaginaryMatter]

And yet, they were able to capture the Citadel, close it up , and move it to Earth  then they really wanted to.

 

Why should they care if this draws the other races?  As everyone keeps saying, "they can't be beaten conventionally".  They're at their strongest in a head-on confrontation.  The fleets of the galaxy vs 20,000 Sovereign-class ships and 100k destroyers?  Bring it!

 

That's the main thing. The Reapers almost immediately after finding out about the Crucible manage to capture the Citadel and move it to Earth with apparently very little fuss.

[bunch1]

And yet, they were able to capture the Citadel, close it up , and move it to Earth  then they really wanted to.

 

Why should they care if this draws the other races?  As everyone keeps saying, "they can't be beaten conventionally".  They're at their strongest in a head-on confrontation.  The fleets of the galaxy vs 20,000 Sovereign-class ships and 100k destroyers?  Bring it!

It's important to remember this accurse after months of war.  The Human, Turian, and Asari had almost certainly withdrawn the bulk of their fleets to defend their own territory which were being attacked by the Reapers piecemeal, leaving only the Salarian fleet at full strength and they likely pulled back their ships to protect Surkesh and the rest of their worlds.  And the point where the reapers attack the citadel has already been compromised by Cerberus and full of refuges that could have been reaper indoctrinated sleeper agents that helps keep the wards open long enough to get inside, they wouldn't have had all these advantages at the start of the war. 

 

Things change in war all the time.  The humans were focused on the crucible, the turians were still holding off a reaper fleet above Palavin, the asari were scattered about trying to protect their vast territory and the salarians were turtling up to protect themselves which made that the perfect time to strike at the citadel.

 

As to the reaper invincibility, it's a myth.  The reapers can be killed by conventional means it's only a matter of numbers and considering that a single industrialized world in Earth receiving raw martials from a few colonies was able to produce a rather sizable fleet within 30 years during a time of peace I'm sure that the combined might of the Turian, Salarian, Asari, and all the 'lesser' races with hundreds of industrialized worlds receiving raw material from thousands of mining outpost and colonies could produce thousands of capital ships if converted to a full war time mobilization.  This is why the reapers always struck the citadel first through the relay.  It cut off the head of state, which this galaxy doesn't really have since the council authority comes from it's member states and they all have their own governments, and it shuts down the ability to easily move ships, personnel, and supplies from one cluster to the next by cutting off the organics from the relay network which they didn't do this time around.

[Iakus]

It's important to remember this accurse after months of war.  The Human, Turian, and Asari had almost certainly withdrawn the bulk of their fleets to defend their own territory which were being attacked by the Reapers piecemeal, leaving only the Salarian fleet at full strength and they likely pulled back their ships to protect Surkesh and the rest of their worlds.  And the point where the reapers attack the citadel has already been compromised by Cerberus and full of refuges that could have been reaper indoctrinated sleeper agents that helps keep the wards open long enough to get inside, they wouldn't have had all these advantages at the start of the war. 

 

Things change in war all the time.  The humans were focused on the crucible, the turians were still holding off a reaper fleet above Palavin, the asari were scattered about trying to protect their vast territory and the salarians were turtling up to protect themselves which made that the perfect time to strike at the citadel.

 

As to the reaper invincibility, it's a myth.  The reapers can be killed by conventional means it's only a matter of numbers and considering that a single industrialized world in Earth receiving raw martials from a few colonies was able to produce a rather sizable fleet within 30 years during a time of peace I'm sure that the combined might of the Turian, Salarian, Asari, and all the 'lesser' races with hundreds of industrialized worlds receiving raw material from thousands of mining outpost and colonies could produce thousands of capital ships if converted to a full war time mobilization.  This is why the reapers always struck the citadel first through the relay.  It cut off the head of state, which this galaxy doesn't really have since the council authority comes from it's member states and they all have their own governments, and it shuts down the ability to easily move ships, personnel, and supplies from one cluster to the next by cutting off the organics from the relay network which they didn't do this time around.

 

At the start of the war, two dozen Reapers destroyed Arcturus Station and Second Fleet, and drove off First and Third Fleet in a single battle!

 

Assuming the Leviathan of Dis was a billion year old Reaper, and that 50,000 years is an average time between cycles, that's 20,000 Sovereign-class Reapers!  Let's also conservatively assume that five destroyers get made for each Sovereign (a pretty conservative guess, as there are about a dozen spacefaring races this cycle)  that's 100,000  destroyers.

 

 Even if it's a numbers game, the Reapers still have the numbers.  Even if it's a firepower game, the Reapers have that too.  By all logic, the Game Over screen should have flashed as soon as the Reapers hit Earth.  But at any rate, there's still no reason they couldn't have zerged-rushed the Citadel at will.  Of course, the zergging would have been done with lots and lots of ultralisks...

[bunch1]

At the start of the war, two dozen Reapers destroyed Arcturus Station and Second Fleet, and drove off First and Third Fleet in a single battle!

 

Assuming the Leviathan of Dis was a billion year old Reaper, and that 50,000 years is an average time between cycles, that's 20,000 Sovereign-class Reapers!  Let's also conservatively assume that five destroyers get made for each Sovereign (a pretty conservative guess, as there are about a dozen spacefaring races this cycle)  that's 100,000  destroyers.

 

 Even if it's a numbers game, the Reapers still have the numbers.  Even if it's a firepower game, the Reapers have that too.  By all logic, the Game Over screen should have flashed as soon as the Reapers hit Earth.  But at any rate, there's still no reason they couldn't have zerged-rushed the Citadel at will.  Of course, the zergging would have been done with lots and lots of ultralisks...

Your numbers are off because of one thing.  1,000,000,000/50,000=20,000 this is right.  But as we see during the war the sovereign class is not invincible and the destroyer even less so, there are many accounts of reaper ships being destroyed by Turian and Human forces.  In 20,000 cycles and wars they didn't loose any ships at all?  Not a single dreadnought every couple of cycles or a couple of destroyers every war?  God forbid they meet a competent organic force out of 20,000 that could kill more then a few of them.  But we know they did.  The Leviathan of Dis and the reaper derelict were both killed in previous cycles so we know that previous organics also had the ability to kill them and there are probably many more that were salvaged for parts or lost in void in the unexplored parts of the galaxy. 

 

So no there aren't 20,000 sovereign and 100,000 destroyers.  Is there fleet large?  Yes, but not to the point where they can just swarm across the entire galaxy, it took them 2-300 years to take out the protheans.  And as I said before, this is a new type of war for them.  They've always shut down the network and picked off the organics piecemeal while concentrating their forces if presented with any resistance and now they don't have that and the organics know they are coming so they believe they've lost the element of surprise.  They believe the citadel is the heart of galactic civilization so attacking the capital of organic life will draw all their defenses to a single battle and they have no way to prevent it.  They may have a 95% chance of winning but if they thought there odds were better following another strategy then they would because they aren't in a rush.

[Iakus]

Your numbers are off because of one thing.  1,000,000,000/50,000=20,000 this is right.  But as we see during the war the sovereign class is not invincible and the destroyer even less so, there are many accounts of reaper ships being destroyed by Turian and Human forces.  In 20,000 cycles and wars they didn't loose any ships at all?  Not a single dreadnought every couple of cycles or a couple of destroyers every war?  God forbid they meet a competent organic force out of 20,000 that could kill more then a few of them.  But we know they did.  The Leviathan of Dis and the reaper derelict were both killed in previous cycles so we know that previous organics also had the ability to kill them and there are probably many more that were salvaged for parts or lost in void in the unexplored parts of the galaxy. 

 

So no there aren't 20,000 sovereign and 100,000 destroyers.  Is there fleet large?  Yes, but not to the point where they can just swarm across the entire galaxy, it took them 2-300 years to take out the protheans.  And as I said before, this is a new type of war for them.  They've always shut down the network and picked off the organics piecemeal while concentrating their forces if presented with any resistance and now they don't have that and the organics know they are coming so they believe they've lost the element of surprise.  They believe the citadel is the heart of galactic civilization so attacking the capital of organic life will draw all their defenses to a single battle and they have no way to prevent it.  They may have a 95% chance of winning but if they thought there odds were better following another strategy then they would because they aren't in a rush.

Sure they lose the occasional ship.  But clearly not often.  

 

Probably because they shut off the relay network so they can divide and conquer!

 

But hey, let's assume the Reapers really really suck at their job and lose half the ships they build.  10,000 Sovereigns and 50,000 destroyers?  Vs, what, the eighty five dreadnoughts the Council races can field? (minus the ones lost at Arcturus), the thirty-odd the geth have, and the quarian liveships?  And however many thousand cruisers, frigates, and fighters/carriers?

 

   Yeah, the odds are much better for the galaxy now

 

And you do realize that the reason it takes centuries to complete a harvest is not because the galaxy puts up so much of a fight, but because it takes time to harvest millions/billions of beings from dozens  of worlds.

[2girls1reaper]

The whole dark energy thing was supposed to tie into the original ending. I would quote the people that were talking about a page or so ago, but either the forums or my new computer just won't let me do it. I had to manually type this url in too smh.  www.totalxbox.com/39736/revealed-the-mass-effect-3-ending-bioware-canned-before-release/

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

And the reapers are pretty sloppy considering the Catalyst thought the plans for the Crucible were eradicated several cycles ago. And pieces for the thing are scattered and easy to find like an easter egg hunt in the galaxy. To me this means:

 

1. The Catalyst was lying. The reapers had designed the thing.

2. They had tried synthesis before but it had always failed. This to me means that a more primitive form of the Crucible was used and the subject was only given one choice - Synthesis. Thus "forcing" the solution.

3. The Reapers planned the Crucible and were waiting for "The Shepard." - why else would our cycle be "ready?" - other cycles such as the Protheans were more advanced.

 

Humans are special.

[themikefest]

At the start of the war, two dozen Reapers destroyed Arcturus Station and Second Fleet, and drove off First and Third Fleet in a single battle!

 

Assuming the Leviathan of Dis was a billion year old Reaper, and that 50,000 years is an average time between cycles, that's 20,000 Sovereign-class Reapers!  Let's also conservatively assume that five destroyers get made for each Sovereign (a pretty conservative guess, as there are about a dozen spacefaring races this cycle)  that's 100,000  destroyers.

 

 Even if it's a numbers game, the Reapers still have the numbers.  Even if it's a firepower game, the Reapers have that too.  By all logic, the Game Over screen should have flashed as soon as the Reapers hit Earth.  But at any rate, there's still no reason they couldn't have zerged-rushed the Citadel at will.  Of course, the zergging would have been done with lots and lots of ultralisks...

How long did it take for the first harvest? I remember Leviathan saying that the relays  were built to make the harvest more efficient. How long did it take to build all the relays? Instead of 50 000 years, it may of been a lot longer between cycles till the relays were up and running. They would still have a lot of capital ships, but not as much as 20 000. Until this cycle, we only know of 2 capital ships that are destroyed. I'm sure more were destroyed. This is only my assumption. With that many ships, I wonder if any were left in dark space for whatever reason.

 

With the destroyers, I have no idea. Never heard of them till ME3.

 

I still believe they would have little trouble taking over the Citadel at the beginning of the game.

[ImaginaryMatter]

How long did it take for the first harvest? I remember Leviathan saying that the relays  were built to make the harvest more efficient. How long did it take to build all the relays? Instead of 50 000 years, it may of been a lot longer between cycles till the relays were up and running. They would still have a lot of capital ships, but not as much as 20 000. Until this cycle, we only know of 2 capital ships that are destroyed. I'm sure more were destroyed. This is only my assumption. With that many ships, I wonder if any were left in dark space for whatever reason.

 

With the destroyers, I have no idea. Never heard of them till ME3.

 

I still believe they would have little trouble taking over the Citadel at the beginning of the game.

 

Cerberus was able to be pretty effective with supposedly much less in the way of naval strength. I think at the very least the Reapers could easily occupy the system and block off what is essentially the center of civilization. It's not the same advantage as controlling the entire Relay network but it sounds like it would but a severe hamper on any of the organic's plans.

[Lady Mortho]

Who created the reapers? I know it wasn't Aphrodite...

[KaiserShep]

The reapers would've been much sexier if she did.

[XXIceColdXX]

This should have been explained in game. Instead of head canon ing the why.

Considering that we have been told that attacking the Citadel and disabling the relays is the Reapers method every time.

Reapers were dumbed down again later in the game when they got hold of the Citadel, but yet again forgot to disable the relays.

[SporkFu]

This should have been explained in game. Instead of head canon ing the why.

Considering that we have been told that attacking the Citadel and disabling the relays is the Reapers method every time.

But in ME1 shep and crew prevent that from happening.

[XXIceColdXX]

But in ME1 shep and crew prevent that from happening.

They prevented the fast transit from dark space. Pretty sure once finally arrived Reapers would be able to disable the relays like they did in the past.

[SporkFu]

They prevented the fast transit from dark space. Pretty sure once finally arrived Reapers would be able to disable the relays like they did in the past.

I don't think they were in any rush.

[XXIceColdXX]

I don't think they were in any rush.

You may be right, all Im saying is the writers shouldn't have left us having to headcanon reasons the Reapers didn't go all out on the Citadel first.

[SporkFu]

You may be right, all Im saying is the writers shouldn't have left us having to headcanon reasons the Reapers didn't go all out on the Citadel first.

I hear you. However, we were given evidence that they were harvesting us all pretty quickly even without disrupting the relay network... At least compared to, say, the protheans.

[XXIceColdXX]

Well yeah, considering the protheans didn't have the luxury of relays after the Reapers arrived, they put up a good fight.

[bunch1]

Sure they lose the occasional ship.  But clearly not often.  

 

Probably because they shut off the relay network so they can divide and conquer!

 

But hey, let's assume the Reapers really really suck at their job and lose half the ships they build.  10,000 Sovereigns and 50,000 destroyers?  Vs, what, the eighty five dreadnoughts the Council races can field? (minus the ones lost at Arcturus), the thirty-odd the geth have, and the quarian liveships?  And however many thousand cruisers, frigates, and fighters/carriers?

 

   Yeah, the odds are much better for the galaxy now

 

And you do realize that the reason it takes centuries to complete a harvest is not because the galaxy puts up so much of a fight, but because it takes time to harvest millions/billions of beings from dozens  of worlds.

We know that the council races destroy more then 1 sovereign and 5 destroyers during the war, many more in fact, and the protheans were even more advanced and militant and were already in a war and mobilized when the reapers invaded them, surely they to destroyed more ships then the reapers built to replace them.  There are likely more cycles then not that don't offer substantial resistance but then there are those organics that fight back with some success out of 20,000 wars and that is going to thin there numbers. 

 

And there is evidence to support them having a much smaller fleet.  They aren't going to leave any ships in dark space so we know they all attacked the batarians, a race that was weaker then humans 10-20 years after they started to build up the fleet and before they joined the council.  After that they split to launch 2 offensive attacks on Earth and Palaven.  They roll over Earth but aren't able to destroy the entire defending fleet before it pulls back and they get stuck in a stalemate at Palaven where they are unable to destroy the Turian fleet even after weeks/months of fighting.  Once they have secured Earth they move on the attack Thessia and once again get bogged down fighting the most populace and richest power in galaxy and don't launch another major attack until the citadel is revealed to be the catalyst.  Sure, they have small forces attacking small colonies of a million or so inhabits without any real space defense but the bulk of there fleet is tied down in 2 systems, that is not a 20,000+ strong fleet.

 

 

Cerberus was able to be pretty effective with supposedly much less in the way of naval strength. I think at the very least the Reapers could easily occupy the system and block off what is essentially the center of civilization. It's not the same advantage as controlling the entire Relay network but it sounds like it would but a severe hamper on any of the organic's plans.

I'm sure they could have secured the space around the citadel if they wanted but they likely wouldn't have been able to get to the station before the arms closed without an inside man if they were coming though a normal relay.  And if they can't shut down the network then there isn't much point, they aren't going to get a major number of organics sitting in space and at the center of the largest relay cluster in the network which means that the moment they send their main fleet off to attack a inhabited world the rest of the organic fleet could jump in and possible destroy their siege fleet.  The reapers are methodical and aren't going to risk turning the citadel into a Verdun, to use a human analogy, where the organics would just pour in every ship and man they had into the battle.  There preferred strategy is to divide and conquer and attacking the citadel is the one thing that would unite the council races, remember in previous cycles the whole point of taking the citadel was to shut down the network and divide the organics, there was no other reason.  It's not that there afraid of losing the war, they know they all but guaranteed to win in the end, but it's about the number of ships they are willing to lose to do it.  The allied fleet at Earth destroyed many of the reaper ships over hours of fighting which isn't what they want, they want to storm into a system defended by a small fleet and destroy it with overwhelming firepower, but when faced with all those ships they simple can't destroy them all before they start to do damage. 

 

The defense fleets were striped away by there own governments to bolster their own fleets in their own territory which meant there was little left to slow down the reapers when they did attack which is why they were able to capture it so easily months on into the war, which may have been their plan all along, the catalyst just made them go a little earlier then they planed.  Though the real question is why didn't they shut down the network when they took the station to prevent the allied fleet from joining up and attacking them?

[Geoff Pinkerton]

This made sense right up to Cronos Station.

 

Before talking to Vendetta I had assumed the following : 

 

In previous cycles the Reapers arrive at the Citadel from Dark Space taking galactic civilisation completely by surprise.

 

The Citadel cant be defended from this attack because the reapers are already there. No counter attack possible, its already too late.

 

The Reapers seize control of the Mass Relay network.

 

Entire regions of space are isolated from each other while a galaxy wide communications blackout ensues ( comm buoys are as reliant on the Relay network as spacecraft are ). Even if galactic civilisation is unified (an unlikely scenario) any resistance will be uncoordinated and severely limited.

 

The Reapers can then mobilise overwhelming force at will and methodically harvest the galaxy system by system. 

 

This is the Reaper's traditional MO as outlined by Vigil on Ilos.  

 

The Protheans via Shepard stopped this in ME1.

 

Without the element of surprise an attack on the Citadel is pointless.

 

The Citadel retains it's strategic value but it is no longer a viable target due to it's impregnable nature.

 

The Reapers probably couldn't take control of the station without destroying it in the process rendering the whole enterprise pointless. 

 

This is why the Reapers ignore the Citadel throughout ME3 and have had to fight a conventional war on several fronts at once.

 

The problem with the plot is caused by the Reapers taking control of the Citadel after Cronos Station mission.

 

I think this was done so the final battle could take place on Earth.

 

The logic of the narrative dictates that upon learning that the Catalyst is in fact the Citadel and that the Illusive Man has informed the Reapers of this the climatic battle with the Reapers should have been at the Citadel. Earth is irrelevant.

 

The Allied Fleet would have had to get the Crucible in place while the Reapers would have tried to stop them. Given that docking the Crucible requires the opening of the Citadel arms any attempt to use the Citadel against the Reapers would have simultaneously left the station vulnerable to Reaper forces. The end battle would have seen the stakes for both sides raised higher than ever. I think this would have been a far better final act than the 'TAKE EARTH BACK!' finale we got.

 

To summarise :

 

The Reapers avoiding the Citadel is not a plot hole but the Reapers taking the Citadel to Earth is a huge plot hole.

 

This was unnecessary from a narrative point of view and seems to have more to do with Bioware's pre launch publicity than the story.

 

I feel that the narrative was subordinated to a marketing campaign. Ideally it should be the other way round.