87 réponses à ce sujet

[Valdrane78]

Scenario.  Humanity didn't discover the mass relay until after the current harvest.  Do you think the Reapers would have left them alone until the next cycle, even though they were a space faring race, just not out of their own solar system yet?  And if they had, do you think humanity would have been advanced enough to take on the Reapers in conventional battle, or would have Sovereign started the harvest earlier than 50k years?

[Grieving Natashina]

My guess is that the species that use the Relays get "flagged" in some way by the Reapers.  The Reapers note who's using the Mass Relays, and knows that the species using the Mass Relay is ready for harvest.  Just a guess though.
 

As to your second part, not sure.

[Excella Gionne]

Then the Illusive Man would have gone out of business.

[SporkFu]

My guess is that the species that use the Relays get "flagged" in some way by the Reapers.  The Reapers note who's using the Mass Relays, and knows that the species using the Mass Relay is ready for harvest.  Just a guess though.
 

As to your second part, not sure.

My theory is, once the reapers take control of the citadel -- which is kinda weird, taking control of the thing that controls them   -- then they activate all the relays, go through them and assess any organic life that's on the other side. 

 

Then the Illusive Man would have gone out of business.

He'd probably become the most powerful man on the planet and be the one leading humanity into space... well, beyond our solar system. 

[Valdrane78]

 

He'd probably become the most powerful man on the planet and be the one leading humanity into space... well, beyond our solar system. 

 

TIM became what he is because of everything that happened after we discovered the relay system.  His interaction with Reaper tech and Saren is what made him that way.  I very much doubt he would play as important of a roll without all that happening.

[Excella Gionne]

My theory is, once the reapers take control of the citadel -- which is kinda weird, taking control of the thing that controls them   -- then they activate all the relays, go through them and assess any organic life that's on the other side. 

 

He'd probably become the most powerful man on the planet and be the one leading humanity into space... well, beyond our solar system. 

Wasn't Cerberus created after the discovery of the relays?

[SporkFu]

yeah, but TIM is still a very smart, very ambitious, very charismatic guy. I'm guessing he'd be in a position of power somewhere. 

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

Humans would have discovered FTL. They would have ventured out into the stars, and possibly colonized in local systems if any had worlds that could sustain life. In the next several hundred years of the harvest, someone would discover the Mars Archives, the Mass Relay system, and alert the reapers of our existence. We're screwed.

[ZipZap2000]

Human nature. We're driven to push buttons with labels that say 'Do not push' some idiot would have picked up the reapers somewhere on something and been dumb enough to try and make contact. Human proto reaper is born husks are born and the illusive man gets indoctrinated and tries to kill us all. It's basically Mass Effect without aliens.

[SporkFu]

OP's point was that the harvest was already complete when humanity discovered the Sol relay, though. I took that to mean the reapers are already gone back to dark space.

[KrrKs]

My two cents:

 

-Not discovering the Charon Relay necessitates not discovering the Prothean Mars outpost/archives -as that was what made humans aware of the relay system in the first place.

 

-Without knowledge of the Relay system and without natural Eezo anywhere in the solar system, Humanity would have been only able to do slow sub lightspeed expeditions to other stars.

 

Speculation:

-My guess is that the reapers check any system with a relay after a while (either during or after main harvest) anyway, so they would have found a inter-planet space faring humanity that poses nearly no thread to them ATM. But since this is still space faring of some sort, they most likely would have still harvested or bombarded everything.

 

-The point where I am unsure is if the reapers actually check non-relay systems in detail and if they can/do detect sublight ships on route to these systems.

From the logistic pov I'd say no, way too much space to cover. But considering there is no known survivor of previous cycles trying this, maybe they do.

 

Edit: Point is -maybe there would have been a colony ship or even small colony that would have survived or maybe not. But I'd guess the solar system would be pretty liveless after the reapers are gone. No matter if the relay was found or not.

[JamesFaith]

By my opinion humanity would be harvest because Reapers already have list of promising civilizations which were observed by Protheans and surely would check as during Harvest. 

[themikefest]

I would guess that humanity would be spared. The other species would be harvested, but none qualified to be a reaper since they aren't diverse enough. The next cycle has humanity as a very powerful species leading all the other civilizations against the reapers.

[fhs33721]

Humanity would probably have been spared. Every other species would have died.

In the next cycle huminty would probably fight over the control of the galaxy with the Yagh and then the Reapers would return and kill off all the humans because Shepard is long since dead and his plot armour can't protect humanity anymore.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

But suppose humanity discovered mass effect technology on their own. Some scientists make eezo. And suppose...

 

Wait... what always gets me is how thorough the reapers are. Some of the Leviathans survived. What makes us think that some of the other cycles didn't survive? Do you know how small a ship is? Even the Destiny Ascension could go dark in an asteroid belt with everyone in stasis pods. The reapers would have better luck winning Powerball.

[Han Shot First]

It might also depend on whether one of the species flagged for annihilation had made contact with humanity. The Vorcha aren't space-faring at all, but the Reapers invaded Heshtok. 

[Lumix19]

But suppose humanity discovered mass effect technology on their own. Some scientists make eezo. And suppose...
 
Wait... what always gets me is how thorough the reapers are. Some of the Leviathans survived. What makes us think that some of the other cycles didn't survive? Do you know how small a ship is? Even the Destiny Ascension could go dark in an asteroid belt with everyone in stasis pods. The reapers would have better luck winning Powerball.

But don't Reapers also scan the information of the races the conquer? That's how they found all but a handful of Protheans isn't it, by having access all their census information and whatnot. There's always going to be a trail of some sort and even if there isn't the Reapers seem to hang around long enough that any preservation measure fails (Illos being an example). The Reapers always struck me as particularly meticulous when it comes to the harvests.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

How did they miss the Leviathans.... oh yeah, Walters needed to explain Starbrat.

[Lumix19]

How did they miss the Leviathans.... oh yeah, Walters needed to explain Starbrat.

I did think the Leviathan explanation was a bit heavy handed in that you find them and they tell you everything despite having no reason to. But I thought it was quite interesting that the Leviathans survived and how it's similar to the Thorian in that they manipulate organics instead of creating synthetics to overcome their limitations. That was a nice link that made sense to me.

[SporkFu]

My two cents:

 

-Not discovering the Charon Relay necessitates not discovering the Prothean Mars outpost/archives -as that was what made humans aware of the relay system in the first place.

 

-Without knowledge of the Relay system and without natural Eezo anywhere in the solar system, Humanity would have been only able to do slow sub lightspeed expeditions to other stars.

 

Speculation:

-My guess is that the reapers check any system with a relay after a while (either during or after main harvest) anyway, so they would have found a inter-planet space faring humanity that poses nearly no thread to them ATM. But since this is still space faring of some sort, they most likely would have still harvested or bombarded everything.

 

-The point where I am unsure is if the reapers actually check non-relay systems in detail and if they can/do detect sublight ships on route to these systems.

From the logistic pov I'd say no, way too much space to cover. But considering there is no known survivor of previous cycles trying this, maybe they do.

 

Edit: Point is -maybe there would have been a colony ship or even small colony that would have survived or maybe not. But I'd guess the solar system would be pretty liveless after the reapers are gone. No matter if the relay was found or not.

If humans discovered the mass relay after the harvest was over -- let's assume the reapers have gone back to dark space and left the Sol system alone -- then logically, we would have found the mars archive first and "jumpstarted our technology two hundred years" (Anderson says this at the beginning of ME1). Gotta believe that once we decided to go through the relay it would lead us to the citadel. Humanity would become the asari of the next cycle. And then maybe we'd have our own first contact war with the Yahg. Which, you know, maybe we wouldn't survive. 

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

If humans discovered the mass relay after the harvest was over -- let's assume the reapers have gone back to dark space and left the Sol system alone -- then logically, we would have found the mars archive first and "jumpstarted our technology two hundred years" (Anderson says this at the beginning of ME1). Gotta believe that once we decided to go through the relay it would lead us to the citadel. Humanity would become the asari of the next cycle. And then maybe we'd have our own first contact war with the Yahg. Which, you know, maybe we wouldn't survive. 

 

We'd be blue mono-gendered tentacle-heads? Evolution!

[SporkFu]

But suppose humanity discovered mass effect technology on their own. Some scientists make eezo. And suppose...

 

Wait... what always gets me is how thorough the reapers are. Some of the Leviathans survived. What makes us think that some of the other cycles didn't survive? Do you know how small a ship is? Even the Destiny Ascension could go dark in an asteroid belt with everyone in stasis pods. The reapers would have better luck winning Powerball.

Ten thousand asari on the destiny ascension waiting on the other end of the sol relay for humans to discover them, and preaching the continuity of civilization when we do. Giggity. 

[SporkFu]

We'd be blue mono-gendered tentacle-heads? Evolution!

Maybe we'd be purple. 

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

And it would cure baldness.

[SporkFu]

And we'd all be better dancers.