123 réponses à ce sujet

[GrandAdmiralThrawn]

Hey, so I find this part confusing, and I'm wondering if anyone has a solution:

 

Shepard personally helps kill 4 Reapers (Soveign, the one on Tuchanka, the one on Rannoch, and the one in Leviathan).  On top of that, its established that the Turians killed at least a few (6 I think?), and since 4 dreadnaughts can kill a Reaper its reasonable to think that others were killed as well.

 

Now, consideing the number or Reapers its reasonable to think that Shepard's cycle wouldn't have the strength to defeat them conventionally.  However, what makes little sense is how there are so many Reapers in the first place?  By my count, there are 12 races which the Reapers are currently trying to harvest.  From the lore, that should result in 1 Reaper Dreadnaught, and 11 smaller Reapers.

 

What therefore confuses me is how do the Reapers have such great numbers, if each Harvest has them loosing more ships than they started with?  Do they re-build the destroyed Reapers after they're done?

 

Also, it's possible the explanation is that they averaged a net positive and simply relied on the huge number of cycles (260,000 at most) to build up their numbers.  However, that also begs the question of how they won in the first few cycles if they only had like 12 ships?  Sure, maybe the Leviathans built a bunch to begin with, but considering how powerful those three guys were, an entire race should have been able to resist the Reapers.  Maybe the first few cycles were just really easy or something?

 

Basically, my point here is that a multi-cycle war of attrition against the Reapers seems plausible here, and I don't really get how it didn't occur.  Any thoughts?

[ImaginaryMatter]

No, I agree. The tactics the current cycle uses are pretty effective and don't seem exclusive to those who have a heads-up on the whole Citadel/trap thing (it basically all extends from the fact that the Reapers can't turn around quickly). At one point Javik says that the Protheans had the technological capacity to take on the Reapers, which makes it seem like it's a safe assumption to assume the Protheans downed some as well (and weren't the Protheans similarly advanced to the guys before them?). Add in stuff like that super accelerator that took out the IFF Reaper and I find it hard to believe the whole cycle thing is a net gain.

 

I guess you can easily dismiss it all by saying that the Reapers do appear to have many, many ships and the current cycle is indeed once in an eon fluke; but I still find it bothersome.

 

Ultimately, I think it was a bad idea to include the multiplayer and EMS systems with the story adjustments and focusing needed to accommodate them.

[teh DRUMPf!!]

 With the Citadel-trap: (1) mass-relay transit gets shut down; (2) the Reapers enter the galaxy in force and are sitting on top off every species' planets before they can even think to get their ships off the ground (at the beginning of ME3, it is clear that most races have a heads-up and mobilize); (3) the galaxy has 0 prior experience fighting against them, likely are ground into pulp by the time they find any remotely successful tactics.

[bunch1]

You have to rember that alot of what we know about the reapers and the previous cycles is second hand, info given by the Reapers themselves, or complete guesses.  Soverign tells us their numbers will darken the skies.  Soverign clamies that the reapers have no begining, that no one built them and they have simpley be around since the dawn of time and we know that's a lie so when he say they will darken the skies of every would do I belive him, no.  The reaper fleet seen in 3 is only a few thosaund ships at most, more then enough to beat the organics of this cycle no doubt but from what we know of how many organics are needed for 1 reaper I don't see them making up their losses this cycle.  I would guess that 3 out of 5 cycles are relativly easy with only 1 or 2 ships lost, 1 of those 5 is a wash and the last 1 results in a net loss.  Over millions of years this has provieded them with a very slow but steady growth but nowhere near the millions of ships some would say they have.

[Valmar]

However, what makes little sense is how there are so many Reapers in the first place?  By my count, there are 12 races which the Reapers are currently trying to harvest.  From the lore, that should result in 1 Reaper Dreadnaught, and 11 smaller Reapers.

 

We know an entire species is used to make a capital ship but we don't know how many is used to make the smaller reapers. Given their smaller size its likely a single species can make up many more than just one small reaper. Add that into the fact that the reapers have been doing this for over a BILLION years. That... that is a lot of time. It's possible the reapers have been around longer than our planet. We don't know for sure just how old they are. We only know they're ancient in every sense of the word.

 

 

What therefore confuses me is how do the Reapers have such great numbers, if each Harvest has them loosing more ships than they started with?  Do they re-build the destroyed Reapers after they're done?

 

You're working off a misconception. The reapers do not lose more ships than they start with. Infact the reaper's do not often lose ships at all in the lore that we know of. There's like two instances we know of where theres destroyed reapers and these are OLD. Like, as old as our species. The fact that one of the only dead reapers we found is one that was wiped out that long ago is pretty telling of just how rare losses are for the reapers. Coincidentally the race that killed that single reaper did so at the cost of their lives and their planet as the weapon they used was so powerful it scarred their world. It was a kamikaze - all to take out one reaper.

 

Our cycle is special. Have you ever played the first game or talked to Javik from the ME3 DLC "From Ashes"? You get insight on this there.

 

The reaper harvest, traditionally, works this way:

 

1. Reapers signal Citadel, activating the relay to dark space.

2. Reapers take the Citadel and with it control of the entire relay network.

3. Reapers isolate the species of the cycle by disabling the relay network and systematically harvesting them world by world, system by system.

 

Our victory, our hope, our everything rides on the fact that the protheans altered the signal. The Citadel was never taken, though the Reapers tried (plot of ME1). Since we kept the Citadel we kept the relays. With the relays we kept connections. We are able to regroup, we are able to bring in resources, we are able to work together. How much chance do you think we have if every species was stuck in their system? We'd be at the mercy of the entire reaper armada that would be free to just waltz in full-force at their leisure.

 

The question here isn't how do the reapers have so many numbers but rather why don't they immediately take the Citadel instead of waiting months in ME3?

 

 

Also, it's possible the explanation is that they averaged a net positive and simply relied on the huge number of cycles (260,000 at most) to build up their numbers.  However, that also begs the question of how they won in the first few cycles if they only had like 12 ships?  Sure, maybe the Leviathans built a bunch to begin with, but considering how powerful those three guys were, an entire race should have been able to resist the Reapers.  Maybe the first few cycles were just really easy or something?

 

The original cycle started with the Leviathan. The Intelligence (catalyst) was building a large network of resources and army for years before hand. The Leviathans never thought it a threat and just let it do its thing. They're above the concerns of lesser races. Apparently that didn't work out for them. The specifics of how it all went down though is never told. So... speculation.

 

It is reasonable to assume that the first races harvested (other than Leviathan) were primitive and unable to resist, though. Remember the pattern of synthetics killing organics? The whole point of the reapers in the first place? In the Mass Effect universe there exists a pattern where civilizations evolve to the point of making machines and then the machines turn on the creators and wipe them out. It would be relatively easy for the first reaper cycle to just wait for the more "advanced" civilizations to wipe themselves out.

 

They could harvest the ones that have no hope of fighting back and any that actually pose any form of threat can be left alone for a few years (relatively speaking)  so that they wipe themselves out with their own creation. Perhaps the Catalyst can then swoop in and hack the synthetics that wiped them out and add them to it's arsenal. Either way, with or without the catalyst or its reapers, we organics are fated to be wiped out it seems. Yet life goes on.

 

Also, just so its clear, the Leviathan's didn't build the reapers. In case you thought they did with you "maybe Leviathans built a bunch" comment.

[bunch1]

You're working off a misconception. The reapers do not lose more ships than they start with. Infact the reaper's do not often lose ships at all in the lore that we know of. There's like two instances we know of where theres destroyed reapers and these are OLD. Like, as old as our species. The fact that one of the only dead reapers we found is one that was wiped out that long ago is pretty telling of just how rare losses are for the reapers. Coincidentally the race that killed that single reaper did so at the cost of their lives and their planet as the weapon they used was so powerful it scarred their world. It was a kamikaze - all to take out one reaper.

While it is true that very few reaper corpses have been found that alone dosen't prove anything.  Sovergiens wreckage jumped forward organics weapons tech well over 10 fold with the creation of the thanix cannon allowing fighters the firepower of crusiers, devolped in only a couple of years.  Reapers aren't stupid, they know that if organics get their hands on their tech they will have a much harder time, if not impossible one considering their tech dosen't advance between cycles.  The way I see it they either a)recycle the hardware from the dead into newly constructed reapers or b)despose of their bodies so organics can't get to them, probly dumping them into stars, black holes, or dense gas giants.

[God]

As people have already covered why the Reapers have their numbers, I'll throw in a tidbit.

 

Not that I admire the man, but CHud! mentioned that prior to the current period, the Reapers never really lost anything. A few destroyers were lost every cycle, with a capital ship lost every so often, but nothing more than maybe one or two every few cycles. This is the first cycle where the Reapers actually lose more than a few.

 

That said, it's not even close enough of a loss to make the war in any way winnable for us. We can do better than everyone else previously at killing Reapers, but we still face the same cost.

 

The only way to beat the Reapers is to use the Crucible.

[bunch1]

As people have already covered why the Reapers have their numbers, I'll throw in a tidbit.

 

Not that I admire the man, but CHud! mentioned that prior to the current period, the Reapers never really lost anything. A few destroyers were lost every cycle, with a capital ship lost every so often, but nothing more than maybe one or two every few cycles. This is the first cycle where the Reapers actually lose more than a few.

 

That said, it's not even close enough of a loss to make the war in any way winnable for us. We can do better than everyone else previously at killing Reapers, but we still face the same cost.

 

The only way to beat the Reapers is to use the Crucible.

 

I don't think you can say this as fact since are knowledge only extendes over 2 cycles.  And since we know the protheans thought that the cycle before them was more advanced then they were and the curent cycle belives the same of the protheans it would likly be fair to say that the tech level between this cycle and the one 400 cycles ago is very comparable.  What if 1 of them had massive population growth(krogan or slarian) and was extremly militant(turian, krogan, human).  There is no more reason to assume they restricted their own dreadnaught program then to assume they build as many as they could.  For all we know there was a cycle with thousands of 1.5 or 2k long dreadnaughts.  Remember, the Alliance has only 1 industrialized world and few coliones over 1 million people and they still manged to build 9 dreadnaughts in a few decades.  The fact is we simply don't know and from what we see in ME3 the Reapers only have a few thousands ships and are only capable of few major offensive actions at a time.  I will be clear, the organics of the Citidel Cycle can not beat the reapers in battle, but we have seen they can be killed by conventinal military ships, so to simply say no one could inflict massive losses on the reapers, particuarly when their fleet was smaller, is to much of a strech for me.
 

[Iakus]

As pointed out before, the standard tactic for the Reapers is to open the dark space relay, take the Citadel, and shut down the relay network for the other races.  This surprise attack effectively decapitates interstellar government, gives them information on every single species' capabilities, and leaves the other races divided and no real way to reinforce each other, or even effectively communicate.  With this strategy they can focus overwhelming power on a few systems at a time, meaning they take next to no casualties.

 

Of course, this also means why the Reapers didn't blitz the CItadel this cycle, instead allowing the races to come together and as a result inflict significant losses as well as finding and building the Crucible, leads one to wonder why the sudden burst of incompetence on their part.

 

Besides "It would have been a short game otherwise" of course 

[Vortex13]

One thing I am more curious about the Reapers than their reproduction is their battle tactics. I am aware that conventional victory was all but impossible, and that the Reapers had a definite technological advantage, as well as the weight of numbers on their side, but did they have to throw all semblance of strategy out the window as soon as they arrived in the galaxy?

 

 

Sovereign and his agent Saren engaged in a shadow war trying to discreetly get to the Citadel, and Harbinger used his army of Collectors to abduct colonists on the edges of civilized space; both tried to use a degree of subtlety when dealing with the galaxy, and only exposed themselves when they deemed it necessary. When the Reapers arrived enmass, discretion was obviously useless, but why do the Reapers engage in a war with no concern for their own losses?

 

 

Reapers using destroyers as cannon fodder, Sovereign class dreadnoughts flying in a straight line at enemy ships trying their best to deflect attacks with their faces, etc. You would think that a race as long lived as the Reapers would want to try and exercise some basic wartime tactics when it comes to trying to preserve their own existence.

 

 

And speaking of preserving, why does the Catalyst; who's sole purpose is to ensure the preservation of organic and synthetic life; deem it necessary to put the very life it is trying to preserve in a warship and then place said warship in a situation where destruction is a very real possibility? Even if the Citadel trap would have worked, having the very things you were created to protect on the front lines of conflict seems very illogical. Even without the benefit of the Citadel, previous cycles have show they are quite capable of downing a Sovereign-class Reaper or two.

[Winterking]

As pointed out before, the standard tactic for the Reapers is to open the dark space relay, take the Citadel, and shut down the relay network for the other races.  This surprise attack effectively decapitates interstellar government, gives them information on every single species' capabilities, and leaves the other races divided and no real way to reinforce each other, or even effectively communicate.  With this strategy they can focus overwhelming power on a few systems at a time, meaning they take next to no casualties.

 

Of course, this also means why the Reapers didn't blitz the CItadel this cycle, instead allowing the races to come together and as a result inflict significant losses as well as finding and building the Crucible, leads one to wonder why the sudden burst of incompetence on their part.

 

Besides "It would have been a short game otherwise" of course 

Hell, the Reapers take control of the Citadel in ME3, and they still allowed the Normandy plus the entire fleet to make the jump to Sol. 

After Cerberus HQ, the Normandy and the rest of the fleet should've been stranded where they were with no means of reaching Earth. Critical Mission Failure.

 

But the Reapers decided that a final battle would've been more fun. And I agree with them. Unfortunely it should've been better than the Priority Earth we got.

[Iakus]

Hell, the Reapers take control of the Citadel in ME3, and they still allowed the Normandy plus the entire fleet to make the jump to Sol. 

After Cerberus HQ, the Normandy and the rest of the fleet should've been stranded where they were with no means of reaching Earth. Critical Mission Failure.

 

But the Reapers decided that a final battle would've been more fun. And I agree with them. Unfortunely it should've been better than the Priority Earth we got.

Bah, they could have hit the CItadel before Earth, and given us a "Critical Mission Failure" as soon as they arrived on Earth.  Shepard never should have left the Sol system alive.

[Orikon]

That's actually one of the things that always kinda confused me. We know that each cycle ends with a birth of one Capital Ship Reaper and new Reaper Destroyers (maybe 4-6) from "lesser species". We took down dozens of Reapers in this cycle alone. It took the Reapers centuries to conquer the Protheans,and you can expect that every cycle delivered at least some kind of resistance at took down at the very least 1 Capital ship and a couple of Destroyers.

 

So how do the Reapers still manage to have such large numbers?

[bunch1]

As pointed out before, the standard tactic for the Reapers is to open the dark space relay, take the Citadel, and shut down the relay network for the other races.  This surprise attack effectively decapitates interstellar government, gives them information on every single species' capabilities, and leaves the other races divided and no real way to reinforce each other, or even effectively communicate.  With this strategy they can focus overwhelming power on a few systems at a time, meaning they take next to no casualties.

 

Of course, this also means why the Reapers didn't blitz the CItadel this cycle, instead allowing the races to come together and as a result inflict significant losses as well as finding and building the Crucible, leads one to wonder why the sudden burst of incompetence on their part.

 

Besides "It would have been a short game otherwise" of course 

Am I the only one who remembers they have FTL drives and communications outside of the mass relays?  Because while mass relays allow near instant travel across the galaxy ftl is still something like 15-20 ly a day and with a 100,000 ly wide galaxy it would take all of 18 years to cross, that is nothing for an asari or krogan.  Just imagine how many inhabited worlds exist within a 30,000 ly shell(5 years travel) and all the warships likly contained their in.  Now add to the fact that in may take the reapers 100 years to get to harvesting that part of the galaxy and 1 industrialized world in earth was able to build a dreadnaught every 3 or 4 years.  To me this why the protheans were able to continue fighting a looseing battle even after centriues, remember Javik himself was born very late in the war and they still were still fighting an intersteller war between different systems.  Again, the reapers will win the war no matter what, but I don't see why everyone all ways thinks it's an instant win without loss just because the citidel and relays are gone.  Particuarly given the number of cycles I would guess atleast 1 of them put up 1 hell of a fight before us.

[Vazgen]

Am I the only one who remembers they have FTL drives and communications outside of the mass relays?  Because while mass relays allow near instant travel across the galaxy ftl is still something like 15-20 ly a day and with a 100,000 ly wide galaxy it would take all of 18 years to cross, that is nothing for an asari or krogan.  Just imagine how many inhabited worlds exist within a 30,000 ly shell(5 years travel) and all the warships likly contained their in.  Now add to the fact that in may take the reapers 100 years to get to harvesting that part of the galaxy and 1 industrialized world in earth was able to build a dreadnaught every 3 or 4 years.  To me this why the protheans were able to continue fighting a looseing battle even after centriues, remember Javik himself was born very late in the war and they still were still fighting an intersteller war between different systems.  Again, the reapers will win the war no matter what, but I don't see why everyone all ways thinks it's an instant win without loss just because the citidel and relays are gone.  Particuarly given the number of cycles I would guess atleast 1 of them put up 1 hell of a fight before us.

Closing the relays cuts communications. The other systems won't even know what happened not to mention mobilizing any sort of organized resistance that is capable to destroy more than 10 Reapers. 

[bunch1]

Closing the relays cuts communications. The other systems won't even know what happened not to mention mobilizing any sort of organized resistance that is capable to destroy more than 10 Reapers. 

QEC don't need relays and I refuse to belive noone else came up with the idea.

 

You don't even need a relay to communicate within a cluster, their only used for cross galaxy comunication.

[Vazgen]

QEC don't need relays and I refuse to belive noone else came up with the idea.

 

You don't even need a relay to communicate within a cluster, their only used for cross galaxy comunication.

QEC is quite expensive to build and it's point-to-point communication. If one side is destroyed or captured, there will be no contact. Of course, there might've been other ways of communication. And cluster-wide resistance is probably what Javik referred to when he talked about sacrificing planets and systems. A cluster with heavy military presence will be able to resist better than a civilian cluster. 

[bunch1]

QEC is quite expensive to build and it's point-to-point communication. If one side is destroyed or captured, there will be no contact. Of course, there might've been other ways of communication. And cluster-wide resistance is probably what Javik referred to when he talked about sacrificing planets and systems. A cluster with heavy military presence will be able to resist better than a civilian cluster. 

That is my point though.  That over all the cycles there are many that likly have put up heavy resistince and inflicted more then 1 dreadnaught losses on the reapers and this is why the fleet we see in game is not the theoretical maximum.  More then not probably went down without much fight but for those cycles that were very militant and industialized I see no reason to assume then didn't inflict enought losses that it would take the reapers a dozen cycles just to get back to were when they started.  To assume that they lost almost no ships is a right as it is to assume they lost 20 every cycle because it is a guess.  All we know is that the reaper fleet in ME3 is probably around a few thousand ships capable of only harvesting 2 or 3 major worlds at a time while maintaning a raiding force.

[Vazgen]

That is my point though.  That over all the cycles there are many that likly have put up heavy resistince and inflicted more then 1 dreadnaught losses on the reapers and this is why the fleet we see in game is not the theoretical maximum.  More then not probably went down without much fight but for those cycles that were very militant and industialized I see no reason to assume then didn't inflict enought losses that it would take the reapers a dozen cycles just to get back to were when they started.  To assume that they lost almost no ships is a right as it is to assume they lost 20 every cycle because it is a guess.  All we know is that the reaper fleet in ME3 is probably around a few thousand ships capable of only harvesting 2 or 3 major worlds at a time while maintaning a raiding force.

On the other hand, they might as well build a few Reapers from the same species. Purely to replenish their numbers. They would probably make Destroyers or processing ships from them. I agree that the capital ship number is probably less than theoretical maximum, but they make up for it with support ships. The "support crew" takes the bulk of hits from the resistance and most Reaper losses come from them.

[God]

I don't think you can say this as fact since are knowledge only extendes over 2 cycles.  And since we know the protheans thought that the cycle before them was more advanced then they were and the curent cycle belives the same of the protheans it would likly be fair to say that the tech level between this cycle and the one 400 cycles ago is very comparable.  What if 1 of them had massive population growth(krogan or slarian) and was extremly militant(turian, krogan, human).  There is no more reason to assume they restricted their own dreadnaught program then to assume they build as many as they could.  For all we know there was a cycle with thousands of 1.5 or 2k long dreadnaughts.  Remember, the Alliance has only 1 industrialized world and few coliones over 1 million people and they still manged to build 9 dreadnaughts in a few decades.  The fact is we simply don't know and from what we see in ME3 the Reapers only have a few thousands ships and are only capable of few major offensive actions at a time.  I will be clear, the organics of the Citidel Cycle can not beat the reapers in battle, but we have seen they can be killed by conventinal military ships, so to simply say no one could inflict massive losses on the reapers, particuarly when their fleet was smaller, is to much of a strech for me.
 

 

Word of God contradicts this entirely.

 

CHud! is Casey Hudson. He directly stated that this was the first cycle where the Reapers really took losses.

 

So yes, I am correct. And your grammar is atrocious.

[bunch1]

Word of God contradicts this entirely.

 

CHud! is Casey Hudson. He directly stated that this was the first cycle where the Reapers really took losses.

 

So yes, I am correct. And your grammar is atrocious.

I prefer action to words and when the game show us and what dev tells don't match up I go with what the game showed.

As for grammer, what can say, I am not a professional editor.  If you were willing to pay me however I could certainly put more effort into my grammer.  If not, oh well.

[God]

The thing is, the game doesn't show you anything that supports your point. You're essentially theorizing (on un-credible numbers no less) and using that to excuse your justification that because you think it's possible (plausibility be damned), it must contradict what was explicitly stated by the project lead.

 

No, no matter how much you think to the contrary, your postulate isn't true beyond headcanon. Casey Hudson explicitly stated that the Reapers never faced significant losses in any cycle prior to the current one. Thus, your point is deductively false. Your premise is untrue. 

[bunch1]

The thing is, the game doesn't show you anything that supports your point. You're essentially theorizing (on un-credible numbers no less) and using that to excuse your justification that because you think it's possible (plausibility be damned), it must contradict what was explicitly stated by the project lead.

 

No, no matter how much you think to the contrary, your postulate isn't true beyond headcanon. Casey Hudson explicitly stated that the Reapers never faced significant losses in any cycle prior to the current one. Thus, your point is deductively false. Your premise is untrue. 

How many reapers do you see at the end of ME 2?  A few hundred?  Thousand?  A hundred thousand?  How many are seen at Earth or Palavin, major heavily defended worlds?  I don't recall there being 20,000 ships at earth for the final battle and if their were then you have to accept that they were very much overrated since even an hour or two of sustained combat was not enough to deafeat the allied fleet.  At no point in the game do you see this massive fleet of hundreds of thousands of ships.

 

Now I've had this argument before and it comes down to this.  Either the reapers have a huge fleet and don't use it and willifuly loose ships in battle over Palaven and Earth or they that is the extent of their force.  The only way for the reaper stratgey impolyed in 3 to make sense is for there fleet to be made up of a few thousand ships(and yes the evidence for this is all circumstantle).  If they do have those massive fleets though then I would have to put them up there as some of the stupidest villians in gaming histroy and considering they are all giant computers that is an understandable hard thing to do.

[God]

How many reapers do you see at the end of ME 2?  A few hundred?  Thousand?  A hundred thousand?  How many are seen at Earth or Palavin, major heavily defended worlds?  I don't recall there being 20,000 ships at earth for the final battle and if their were then you have to accept that they were very much overrated since even an hour or two of sustained combat was not enough to deafeat the allied fleet.  At no point in the game do you see this massive fleet of hundreds of thousands of ships.

 

 

 

Enough to know that there is zero chance of us ever defeating them without some kind of miracle technology.

 

I see a handful of Reapers at the Turian homeworld, tanking everything the Turians can throw at them, and the Turians acknowledging that they're being pushed back. At Earth? Not every Reaper in the galaxy is at Earth. In fact, I'd say that most weren't at Earth. The vast, vast majority of the Reapers are still out in the galaxy, doing what they've been doing. Reaping. They're out hunting, searching, patrolling, and searching for the races to harvest. I don't hold that they're overrated at all. I take the solution that you're deliberately ignoring and state that the Reapers don't have their full numbers at Earth. And an hour or two of sustained combat? It's more like the allied ships are deliberately throwing themselves in front of the Reapers to block them from firing on the Crucible. The fleet is nothing more than cannon fodder, bullet sponges to protect the Crucible. 

 

And if you had any knowledge of NAVCOM strategy, you'd know that you don't keep all of your ships together. It's just not useful. The Reapers are busy everywhere in the galaxy. The fleet is dispersed, hunting down the allied fleets and planets.

 

So the numbers of the Reapers are indeed quite massive, far larger than our own. We have the advantage of not having them all in one place at once however. 

 

I believe the number of Reapers at Earth alone is quite capable of wiping out the galactic fleets. And I'm proven right, by the refusal ending. The allied fleets certainly get their ass handed to them.

 

Now I've had this argument before and it comes down to this.  Either the reapers have a huge fleet and don't use it and willifuly loose ships in battle over Palaven and Earth or they that is the extent of their force. 

 

 

This is a fallacy. You're claiming that there are no more than these two possibilities.

 

It's false because there exist other possibilities. Like the Reapers disseminating their fleet all across the galaxy to do their job. They aren't bunching up, and they aren't small in number. They have a huge fleet, and they are using it. They don't need to be in the same place at once.

 

The only way for the reaper stratgey impolyed in 3 to make sense is for there fleet to be made up of a few thousand ships(and yes the evidence for this is all circumstantle).  If they do have those massive fleets though then I would have to put them up there as some of the stupidest villians in gaming histroy and considering they are all giant computers that is an understandable hard thing to do.

 

 

Or, as I've already discredited your argument by stating that the limited nature of the Reapers that you've placed on the Reapers is not true (as the game shows; see the Reapers attacking Tuchanka, Thessia, and presumably other worlds at once). There are thousands of Reapers, and they're disseminated across the galaxy performing various functions.

[KrrKs]

That's actually one of the things that always kinda confused me. We know that each cycle ends with a birth of one Capital Ship Reaper and new Reaper Destroyers (maybe 4-6) from "lesser species". We took down dozens of Reapers in this cycle alone. It took the Reapers centuries to conquer the Protheans,and you can expect that every cycle delivered at least some kind of resistance at took down at the very least 1 Capital ship and a couple of Destroyers.

 

So how do the Reapers still manage to have such large numbers?

Do we actually know that the reapers only produce 1 Sovereign class ship per cycle? AFAIR this is based solely on EDIs lines in ME2 and the Leviathans statement.

The later only states that 1 species is made into a capital ship, but not that there really is only 1 such ship produced. (Would be kind of stupid, imo)

Similar holds true for Destroyer production. There are at least as many produced per cycle as there are (advanced enough) species. It could very well be several per such species.

 

Reaping the Protheans took centuries because the Reapers obliterated them one cluster after another (or maybe very few at a time). With all their ship (or a large portion of them) in a single cluster there were likely no reaper ship losses to speak of.

 

Why this cycle does better? Most of that has to do with a giant nerf done to the Reaper capabilities between the games. (I know some say they were 'upped'. but this is not true)

ME1s Sovereign had no problems getting shot at by a dozen cruisers (+ frigates and fighters) simultaneously and could 'make turns that would tear any Alliance ship apart'.

ME3 Sovereign class Reaper suddenly turn slower than Alliance (or other) ships and lose shields to 4 dreadnoughts.

 

Am I the only one who remembers they have FTL drives and communications outside of the mass relays?  Because while mass relays allow near instant travel across the galaxy ftl is still something like 15-20 ly a day and with a 100,000 ly wide galaxy it would take all of 18 years to cross, that is nothing for an asari or krogan.

Without the relays, communication and transport are pretty much limited to within a star cluster. ME ships (apart from the Reapers) are not capable of flying longer distances without fuel or means to discharge their Eezo cores (Life support doesn't seem to be a problem, though).

Modifié par KrrKs, 06 avril 2015 - 03:42 .