If their true purpose is to prevent a cataclysmic organic/synthetic war, why not just periodically come back and wipe out all synthetics? Seems like it would be a lot easier--we already saw how trivial it was to wipe out a whole bunch of Geth at the end of ME2 afterall.
The answer is that they don't really care about the fate of organics at all. They just want us for the gray goo.
They "preserve" synthetics as well. Their goal is to stop one from destroying the other
They "preserve" synthetics as well. Their goal is to stop one destroy the other
Doesn't starkid say something about preserving synthetic and organic life?
Doesn't starkid say something about preserving synthetic and organic life?
Doesn't starkid say something about preserving synthetic and organic life?
Yes. The turd does say that.
Do they? Was there going to be a geth reaper? I don't think anything is specifically mentioned in the trilogy. The closest comment I can remember off the top of my head is that Saren says that Sovereign doesn't see the geth (heretics) as more than tools.
My impression was that synthetics get destroyed in each cycle, although I don't think there is actual proof for this either.
Therefore, I'd say that it can actually be argued that the reapers are biased against synthetics, rather than organics.
The Catalyst says that. In its twisted logic it actually is the best way. As Leviathans claim, the Catalyst was created to oversee the relations between synthetics and organics. Destroying any one of those variables was not really a solution so it actually "preserved" both
He does. Specifically in the extended cut, I think - and it heavily implies that both organics and synthetics are somehow preserved in Reaper form.
Yes. The turd does say that.
So I'm not crazy. Phew.
OK so Reapers' mission is to preserve both? Well again this strategy would be biased against organics since synthetics could be preserved as software without losing anything except the physical interface, while organics need to be harvested and our consciousness doesn't survive that process.
OK so Reapers' mission is to preserve both? Well again this strategy would be biased against organics since synthetics could be preserved as software without losing anything except the physical interface, while organics need to be harvested and our consciousness doesn't survive that process.
Not sure if that's the case in Mass Effect Universe. There is that "genetic essence" mumbo-jumbo introduced in ME1. The Reapers preserve that essence
No matter what they do they'll be bias to you because you're bias against them.
We don't know consciousness doesn't survive. Saying one way or another is just speculation and headcanon. Thoughts, memories, experience and knowledge are all genentic markers that can stored, shared or otherwise saved. We see this a few times in Mass Effect.
A Reaper is essentially "billions of organic minds, uploaded and conjoined within immortal machine bodies."
Preserving synthetics doesn't mean much compared to preserving organics. Organics have to be turned into a primordial smoothie, whereas synthetics can just be uploaded to a reaper flash drive or something. They're already bits of digital information not inextricably bound to their physical platforms.
Harbinger: Prepare these humans for ascension!
Reaper Adjunct 37: You mean liquefy?
Harbinger:.......yes.
Reaper Adjunct 37: What of the geth?
Harbinger: Oh, save them to my favorites folder.
Couldn't they just control the synthetics before they become fully self aware? They'd just go in, boop, all synthetics controlled. They harvest them (somehow, although I've never seen robots getting impaled or turning into Reaper minions) and done.
That would be a hell of a lot easier than waging galactic war.
Preserving synthetics doesn't mean much compared to preserving organics. Organics have to be turned into a primordial smoothie, whereas synthetics can just be uploaded to a reaper flash drive or something. They're already bits of digital information not inextricably bound to their physical platforms.
It isn't necessarily that easy.
http://masseffect.wi...al_Intelligence
"Without its blue box, an AI is no more than data files. Loading these files into a new blue box will create a new personality, as variations in the quantum hardware and runtime results create unpredictable variations."
The geth are unique because the geth are not really AI. Or rather, they weren't originally. ME3 changed that with the reaper upgrades. The geth were essentially a bunch of VI programs that worked together to achieve the level of intelligence of an AI. So geth could be saved or copied over without issue because they're simple programs that only gain complexity by working together.
'Real' AI cannot be treated in the same way. Copying them over to a new bluebox would create a whole new AI. So yes some synthetics ARE inextricably bound to their physical platforms.
Couldn't they just control the synthetics before they become fully self aware? They'd just go in, boop, all synthetics controlled. They harvest them (somehow, although I've never seen robots getting impaled or turning into Reaper minions) and done.
That would be a hell of a lot easier than waging galactic war.
There is no war, there is only the harvest. 
Their mandate is to preserve organic life. They do so by harvesting them and giving them immortal reaper bodies.
Also, for what reason would they need to impale synthetics? There is an organic-specific reason for the 'dragons teeth' apparently. Reason's that wouldn't apply to synthetic life-forms.
Perhaps they use the synthetics blue boxes to give the preserved DNA an intelligence/preserve the knowledge of the species in question. I don't see how you could actually preserve knowledge through liquefying peoples brains, unless we're going into assassins creed territory with genetic memories.
Perhaps they use the synthetics blue boxes to give the preserved DNA an intelligence/preserve the knowledge of the species in question. I don't see how you could actually preserve knowledge through liquefying peoples brains, unless we're going into assassins creed territory with genetic memories.
Which Mass Effect actually does. Asari kinda do it, Protheans definitely did it, Thorian did it, Reapers do it.
Actually, one could probably best describe the Reapers as luddites. They aren't against all organics, are they? No, they only target organics that are advanced enough to conceive an AI powerful enough to destroy ALL organic life before they return to do it all again.
Their "work" is to build the firebreak against the (thankfully) still theoretical doomsday AI that doesn't discriminate and kills off all organic life as "the enemy". If a few trillion have to die to protect the septillions in their wake, "so be it".
Well not really though all those people are still alive Valmar.
Shiala
Asari
Protheans
They don't destroy the body to scan genetic material for memories they use a psychic link. Or in the Protheans case they scan your living body or chemical traces left behind by you for markers which decay over time.
All those people? You misunderstand me.
I never said they had to destroy the body. I was merely pointing out that in the Mass Effect universe memory, knowledge, experience and all these things are all linked to your genetic material and can be saved/stored/read. The Asari can read back through your heritage line when they meld with you (apparently). The thorian saved the 'essence' of the thorians by devouring their bodies. So on and so forth. This ability of 'preserving' organic knowledge is not something unique to the reapers and has been in the series since the very beginning.
The bodies of the protheans the Thorian devoured certainly were destroyed. The prothean's whom stored their knowledge and experience in the echo shards certainly ARE dead. No, you dont HAVE to destroy the body to save/store this information. I never said they had to.
You said you didn't see how they could preserve memories and knowledge by liquifying brains. I'm elaborating on the fact that they CAN in Mass Effect universe and pointing out examples, some direct and some not. The brain is irrelevant to the knowledge and memories, apparently. In Mass Effect all these things are biological markers, as Javik tells us.
Wiki quotes -
Asari:
An asari's melding ability extends to a mental connection as well, which Liara describes as being the true union between an asari and her partner. It allows the asari to explore her partner's genetic heritage and pass desirable traits on to any offspring. During mating an asari and her partner share memories, thoughts, and feelings. It is also possible for an asari to meld with another for the sole purpose of transferring thoughts, without reproduction.
Thorian:
"When the Protheans arrived and began building the metropolis that would eventually cover Feros, the curious Thorian studied them, likely made several of them into its thralls, and even absorbed them after they died, allowing them to become a part of its expanding consciousness.
From the Protheans, the Thorian's mind gradually absorbed the knowledge that would form the Cipher. "
Prothean:
"A unique attribute of Prothean physiology is an experiential exchange system based on physical touch. By touching something or someone, a Prothean could recall its experiences. This system can transfer complex ideas, with a Prothean being capable of learning a new skill or foreign language with a single touch."
Also take into account the prothean's Echo Shards. These 'echo shards' may not seem all that astonishing but consider this: these little pieces of technology are capable of storing memories, experiences, emotions, and knowledge. Not unlike the beacons themselves but seemingly more elaborate and with a broader scope of what it can store. Soldiers would pass them down from one to another to get glimpses of what life used to be. Individuals also seem to be able to place their own memories and experience into the shards by touching them, non protheans included.
Wiki quote:
“If you encourage Javik to relive it, he'll pass the Echo Shard to Shepard for him to add his memories to it”
To quote the wiki, again, on the reapers:
"Individuals who are determined to be suitable for processing are loaded onto Reaper Processors, where they are ushered into single-person pods. Once in the pods, the victims are dissolved into a raw genetic "paste" for ease of transport. This paste will then be used in the construction of a newborn Reaper, with the victims' minds being preserved to form the Reaper's gestalt consciousness. "
More quotes!
“This explains why the captured humans were rendered into their base components. Destructive analyst. They were dissected down to the atomic level. That data could be stored on an AI's neural network. The knowledge and essence of billions of individuals complied into a single synthetic identity. The ultimate goal would be to upload all humans into this reaper mind. “
It may also be worth mentioning the 'Virtual Aliens'. A species in Mass Effect lore that uploaded the minds of their civilization (one billion individuals) into a computer in order to survive a supernova. We are not talking about making mere copies of themselves, they were able to take their consciousness out of their physical bodies and store them safely in this virtual world. They can even swap places with other sentient being and control their bodies.
So yeah. They can preserve memories and experience from just the goo.
Really? Huh, I just played through that dialogue the other day and already don't remember that. Shows I'm getting old I guess. Ok then, unbiased it is.
Actually, it goes back even farther than the turd. Legion says back in ME2 that the Reapers offered them their future, and we learned that the geth were planning to build some sort of superstructure where they would upload all their minds and share memories. That is basically what a Reaper is, too (not exactly, of course; I should not have to say that, but I do, or some people will jump all over me for saying this), though not all geth agreed that joining the Reapers was the right way to go about accomplishing that end goal. Still, ME2 made it clear what the nature of a Reaper was in another, later chat with Legion (that you can only get if you exhaust his dialogue before the suicide mission, in which case, you can kiss your Cerberus crew goodbye).
"Billions of organic minds uploaded and conjoined into immortal machine bodies. 'Each a nation.'"
Ok lets take that and look at it
Mental connection: self explanatory. The rest sounds more like Prothean using touch to explore memory only they scan the genetic structure which again requires both beings to be alive, unless you're saying the asari can melt people down and mate with a puddle.
Recall memories through touch: It won't work on genetic material left behind. Example Grunt, Javik doesn't gain memories from Grunt just an overall impression from the chemicals traces left behind by him same for Jack.
Echo shards: "Javik: It seems this cycle is still primitive in it's communications." It's nor more than a miniature prothean beacon and proves my point it doesn't take memories from genetic material it's a conduit for the living to communicate, like a phone.
Thorian: Shiala "My mind melded with the thorian and I was able to absorb the cypher." "I became one with the thorian." This would indicate the memories are transferred through telepathy, which is how the thorian gained the cypher in the first place.
Storing the victims mind after you melted it down is impossible, as we saw in the collector base there is no uploading of a consciousness resembling the example you give they lock you in the pod (or even kill you first as we saw in the ending of ME3) and melt you down.
The Mass Effect wiki is dodgy at best.
Mental connection: self explanatory. The rest sounds more like Prothean using touch to explore memory only they scan the genetic structure which again requires both beings to be alive, unless you're saying the asari can melt people down and mate with a puddle.
This is not at all what I was saying, you know this. The asari can look through our genetic heritage. It is in our genes. That was the connection to the Asari and the context they provided.
Recall memories through touch: It won't work on genetic material left behind. Example Grunt, Javik doesn't gain memories from Grunt just an overall impression from the chemicals traces left behind by him same for Jack.
Example Grunt, Javik realized that he was having memories that were not his own.
Echo shards: "Javik: It seems this cycle is still primitive in it's communications." It's nor more than a miniature prothean beacon and proves my point it doesn't take memories from genetic material it's a conduit for the living to communicate, like a phone.
Javik was not saying that in context to the echo shard. He was speaking specifically about the beacons, which are not the same. The beacons are to pass information directly into a subject's mind. Not to store memories. Which the echo shard specifically is. I'm not sure how much more clear the game has to be on that regard, it pretty much directly tells you that that the echo shard stores the memories and experiences of others.
Javik also explicitly tells you that experience is a genetic marker. Not "its read from the brain". Given this and everything else the game tells us in the lore, specifically about the reapers, I'm not sure why you're so against seeing it. The fact that memories and memories are GENETIC markers is lore fact in the mass effect universe. This is the entire reason why the Reaper's perceive what they do as 'harvesting' and 'preserving'. To misunderstand this fact is to gravely misunderstand the reapers.
Thorian: Shiala "My mind melded with the thorian and I was able to absorb the cypher." "I became one with the thorian." This would indicate the memories are transferred through telepathy, which is how the thorian gained the cypher in the first place.
Yes the asari received the memories with the melding process. I was not saying that Shiala got the knowledge and experience of protheans by devouring their remains, I said the thorian did. Because that is what it says in the lore. If you don't trust the word of the wiki then I don't know what else to tell you. As someone who has been on the wiki many times over the years I can tell you that they have some of the strictest policies when it comes to this stuff. That may not mean anything to you but whatever.
Storing the victims mind after you melted it down is impossible, as we saw in the collector base there is no uploading of a consciousness resembling the example you give they lock you in the pod (or even kill you first as we saw in the ending of ME3) and melt you down.
The Mass Effect wiki is dodgy at best.
You're kidding me right? They explicitly go out of their way to tell us that store the memories and knowledge of the harvested. The examples I give are directly from the lore, for context. Not my speculation on the matter. Knowledge, memories, experience are all genetic markers. This is what is told to us in the game. They have the ability to store this on hardware. This is told to us and observed by us in the game. The reapers say they are doing this, Legion says they are doing this, Edi says they are doing this.
I also never said that consciousness remained. I said that we don't know one way or another if it does. It's purely speculation. Depending on your perspective and interpretation it does or it doesn't. It can work both ways, its up to you. It isn't ever directly said one way or another. Like I said originally. It is lore fact that they preserve our knowledge and experience. It is lore fact that a reaper is essentially billions of organic minds linked together to form one consciousness. Rather or not any one individual can still have consciousness is unknown. They all combine to become one entity. In many ways the reaper's are like an organic version of the geth consensus which is a bunch of VI processes all conjoined to make one. There truly is no 'individual' they each make up a greater whole. Consciousnesses can be said to remain depending on how you wish to view it. Just as the reapers are alive depending on how you wish to see it.
The Mass Effect wiki is dodgy at best.
I strongly disagree but to each their own.
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