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[dreamgazer]

I think it's silly too. And I also can accept this story premise...silly as it is.
 
I think the only thing I disagree with you about is that I think the Reapers aren't "blustering". That they're programmed to be antagonistic. I think everyone is a tool in the Catalyst's hands. I just can't say why they made the Reapers that way.

As I said, demoralization is a powerful tool.

It's why people boo at sports games and distribute propaganda during elections.

[Silvair]

I just like to pretend that it was Harbinger you take down face to face (literally) on Rannoch, and ME3 ends there, with the reapers losing their hivemind leader.

[dreamgazer]

I don't know. They usually demoralize by coming through the Citadel. Then it's widespread hopelessness. 
 
This is the only time it didn't work. "Talking smack" is their Plan B?

You think this is the first time Sovereign and Harbinger have every talked smack over a billion years?

"You resist, but you will fail." "Without our intervention, organics are doomed." "Finish your war; we will be waiting" - Dying Reaper on Rannoch

[dreamgazer]

That doesn't sound like talking smack to me though. It almost sounds like pity. This is them being "nice".

I don't really consider saying that organics will "fail" and "are doomed" to be pity or relative niceness, but it definitely reeks of confidence and plants a few final seeds of impending doom before the baby Reaper zapped out of existence.

"Finish you war; we will be waiting" gets the job done far more than calling Shepard's mother a hamster and saying their father reeks of elderberries.
 

There are other statements where they aren't trying to help at all. "Your worlds will become our laboratories", "I am limitless. You are bacteria.". And instead of being dismissive, they want to punish Shepard for resistance. "You will regret your resistance, Shepard."

I don't disagree, but Harbinger was always an obnoxious schoolyard bully.

[dreamgazer]

I figured the "Finish your war" line is another variation of "There is no war. There is only the harvest." 
 
Although Leviathan hadn't come out until later, of course. But it shows how the idea of conflict (as organics see it) is irrelevant to them.

"We will be waiting" is the other side to that.

Conflict, like organics themselves, is a nuisance with an inevitable end, and it comes much quicker against dispirited enemies.

[dreamgazer]

Maybe you're right (that it's all intentional demoralization).
 
It doesn't seem to work for them though. Not just with Shepard, but we hear EDI tell that story about humans on Earth not giving in various ways. They'd all rather die.

There's also an entire planet that commits suicide in response to the Reaper invasion, and other people who were lured onto Reaper ships under the guise of surrender and/or cooperation.

You're right: it doesn't work on everybody, which ends up being a thematic strength.

[SimJom]

The things you reference display use in an ecosystem within which you're an active participant, whereas the Reapers stay away until action's required and return to darkspace after they're done for the next step in their agenda. [...]

The Reapers display no use for galactic life and its resources, only imposing order over their chaos and growing their numbers to aid in their dominance. Your position only makes sense if organic life serves a tactile purpose for them, and beyond reproduction and cultivation in ME2 and ME3 that's more about preserving the continuity of genetic material and paying tribute, there's never any indication whatsoever that the Reapers have any use for anything produced by the dispersal and advancement of civilizations. They're vermin, bacteria, things with which you call exterminators and pest control to take care of ... and you don't wait until they're at the apex of their glory before doing so.

They're called Reapers and they harvest : of course they have a use for galactic life. It's reproduction, which you dismiss as if it doesn't matter at all. It's reason enough. By harvesting entire galactic civilisations, they can create another "perfect" being, another Reaper. How is that not a good reason? Just because those civilisations are "bacteria" doesn't mean that the Reapers should exterminate them for no reasons. It's another gratuitous conclusion. The human species needs some form of bacteria to survive : they shouldn't be exterminated on sight. The Reapers need them ("us") to reproduce : if that's a goal, they shouldn't absolutely annihilate them, but rather destroy them in the form of a harvest they can use.

You can, but it doesn't make any sense when applied to mecha-Cthulhu who are the pinnacle of evolution and the end of everything. [...] There's no reason for them to stall the annihilation of organic pests they're absolutely going to annihilate, unless there's an agenda imposed that tells the annihilators to wait until some other time.

Cthulhu's ambition is to rule the world, even though humans are nothing before him ; hardly a good comparison. And again, you assume that if the Reapers really thought that galactic civilisations were nothing more than bacteria, they would absolutely annihilate them. This would need a better justification. As for why they stall not the absolute annihilation, but the harvest, it's because they, themselves, are made of the genetic material and cultures of those civilisations. Waiting for them to reach their apex makes sense.

Read those quotes again, and think about words like "extinction" and "annihilation". That's the attitude being projected by the Reapers; whether it's the truth in terms of the agenda they service is something else altogether.

Those quotes only mean complete and absolute annihilation when considered abstractly. In the context of the games and the harvest, it means something else completely, and ME2's ending made it absolutely clear what it was : destroying civilisations, for the Reapers, means using them to create Reapers then wiping everything out in order to leave no trace. That's all you need in terms of agenda.

If they're so beyond it and it's nothing but a nuisance whose extinction is "inevitable", they have zero reason to continue to let it thrive. Reapers have no need for reproduction, especially if they are so contemptuous of the material that goes into the creation of each one.

That's the most gratuitous thing you've said yet. Why wouldn't they want to reproduce? And why wouldn't they do it if they had contempt for the material? A lot of people have contempt for the animals they eat and don't care at all about their treatment ; yet they still eat them. Some feel the same about sexual intercourses too ; yet they still do it in the name of reproduction. Again, you draw conclusions from premises that don't suggest them in the slightest.

If one cycle were able to do that, other cycles were able to do that, and it would be entirely avoidable by coming in sooner instead of later.

The citadel's signal, I said. The Reapers usually start their harvest with a surprise attack on the citadel, which makes the rest much easier. This cycle, it didn't happen, which made the resistance much stronger.

Why would they preserve the cultures and memories of vermin, bacteria, and nuisances if it weren't in service of a higher order?

It is in the service of a higher order : themselves. They're made of the stuff. It's the only reason (and you keep ignoring it) they don't come sooner.

 
 

[prosthetic soul]

Jason Isaac = Bioware

Mel Gibson = Anti-enders

French dude = IT crowd

 

[AlanC9]

If they had stopped at Sovereign's level, it would've made perfect sense. The Reapers are indifferent one way or another but stomp us out when we look like we might be a threat. The only other loose end would've been what they do when they're not here. We only assume they wait/hibernate in dark space. But they could've been off doing something else incomprehensible.

The retcon's OK, but two problems come to mind. First, it only works if the Reapers are at some sort of final technological plateau. Otherwise they'd be ahead of organics forever. Second, there's no obvious reason to let organics develop, let alone encourage them to develop in particular ways. Sovereign's speech can't be easily reconciled with total indifference, and in any event the Reapers should intervene the moment organics discover mass effect drives.

[AlanC9]

They're called Reapers and they harvest : of course they have a use for galactic life. It's reproduction, which you dismiss as if it doesn't matter at all. It's reason enough. By harvesting entire galactic civilisations, they can create another "perfect" being, another Reaper. How is that not a good reason? Just because those civilisations are "bacteria" doesn't mean that the Reapers should exterminate them for no reasons. It's another gratuitous conclusion. The human species needs some form of bacteria to survive : they shouldn't be exterminated on sight. The Reapers need them ("us") to reproduce : if that's a goal, they shouldn't absolutely annihilate them, but rather destroy them in the form of a harvest they can use.

The problem isn't that the Reapers are farming organics for reproduction. The problem is that their plan for doing so is inefficient, dangerous, and stupid -- unless they have a goal other than simple reproduction.

[wolfhowwl]

it's still a video game, and video games without a final boss fight are always disappointing.

I'm going to disagree here. I would prefer that the developers not include one if they aren't able to make it fun or fit what is going on in the game.

The ME1 Saren hopper fight was bad and also trivialized the dialogue check and while the ME2 Human Reaper fight was better mechanically it was very silly and the thing probably would have made more sense as the MacGuffin than a boss fight.

I also recently finished Uncharted 2 and had to suffer through the comical final boss fight where Naughty Dog wanted you to be chased around a fishbowl arena by a bulletsponge Russian throwing five grenades at once, LOL!

[SimJom]

The problem isn't that the Reapers are farming organics for reproduction. The problem is that their plan for doing so is inefficient, dangerous, and stupid -- unless they have a goal other than simple reproduction.

Again, that is ignoring the fact that the Reapers are made from the consciousness of the civilisations they harvest. They need them to develop.

 

Also, I don't see how the Catalyst's plan, which is exactly the same, is any less stupid. Following the same rationale, you could argue that it doesn't need to wait until civilisations become a threat to the Reapers to start the harvest. It's unnecessarily dangerous. If the goal is to harvest and preserve a civilisation before its own synthetics destroy it and perhaps all organic life, it can do so well before those synthetics are even conceived.

[SimJom]

I'm going to disagree here. I would prefer that the developers not include one if they aren't able to make it fun or fit what is going on in the game.

The ME1 Saren hopper fight was bad and also trivialized the dialogue check and while the ME2 Human Reaper fight was better mechanically it was very silly and the thing probably would have made more sense as the MacGuffin than a boss fight.

I also recently finished Uncharted 2 and had to suffer through the comical final boss fight where Naughty Dog wanted you to be chased around a fishbowl arena by a bulletsponge Russian throwing five grenades at once, LOL!

I liked all those boss fights (though that Uncharted 2 fight is ridiculously hard on Crushing...), so yeah, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.
By the way, I have never understood all the bashing of the baby reaper. It might not have been the best idea ever, but everyone seems to think its the stupidest thing of the whole trilogy. I really don't think it's that bad.

[angol fear]

 

They're called Reapers and they harvest : of course they have a use for galactic life. It's reproduction, which you dismiss as if it doesn't matter at all. It's reason enough. By harvesting entire galactic civilisations, they can create another "perfect" being, another Reaper. How is that not a good reason?

 

First, Reproduction for reproduction is organic (and natural) answer to natural mortality. We reproduce because we die. Reproduction without any other goal can't be synthetic way of thinking. I could quote Sovereign speech but you already know what he says. Sovereign doesn't think like an organic. No beginning, no end, so why would they create other reapers if they don't die? 

Second, each game is based on a final revelation, the purpose of the reapers wasn't supposed to be revealed in the end of the second game. It was just a step.

[SimJom]

First, Reproduction for reproduction is organic (and natural) answer to natural mortality. We reproduce because we die. Reproduction without any other goal can't be synthetic way of thinking. I could quote Sovereign speech but you already know what he says. Sovereign doesn't think like an organic. No beginning, no end, so why would they create other reapers if they don't die? 

Second, each game is base on a final revelation, the prupose of the reapers wasn't supposed to be revealed in the end of the second game. It was just a step.

Concerning your first point, I never said that the Reapers reproduce just for the sake of reproducing. We don't know, at least in the first two games, why they would do it. Their goals and purposes, as far as we know, are beyond our comprehension. All I've said is that reproduction is reason enough to harvest us, whatever their reason for reproducing is.

Concerning your second one, I'm not saying the purpose of the Reapers is visible in the first two games. I'm saying the purpose we got in the third game (preserve life at all cost) is incoherent with how the Reapers are presented in the previous games (life is a genetic mutation, an accident, you are vermin, you are bacteria, etc.). The only way to make it coherent, like Dreamgazer said, is to postulate that the Reapers don't really mean what they say. It's trash-talk ; they just want to demotivate you. They're basically programmed to be giant Mohammed Ali robots. That's really bad and, in my opinion, it really cheapens them as villains.

[AlanC9]

Again, that is ignoring the fact that the Reapers are made from the consciousness of the civilisations they harvest. They need them to develop.

How does letting them develop to a higher technological level help with the consciousness part?
 

Also, I don't see how the Catalyst's plan, which is exactly the same, is any less stupid. Following the same rationale, you could argue that it doesn't need to wait until civilisations become a threat to the Reapers to start the harvest. It's unnecessarily dangerous. If the goal is to harvest and preserve a civilisation before its own synthetics destroy it and perhaps all organic life, it can do so well before those synthetics are even conceived.

The argument works if letting organics develop is something the Reapers see as good for its own sake. I see how this can fit in with the Catalyst's plan, as a second-order value that he indulges to the extent he can. I don't see how it can fit if they really have no further interest in us beyond harvesting. I suppose you can play some mystical crap here to save the theory, but that still only gets you to being just as bad as what we've got.

[SimJom]

How does letting them develop to a higher technological level help with the consciousness part?

Because technology is part of culture, philosophy and therefore consciousness. Come on.

This also answers the second part of your post. And I don't care if you think it's mystical crap or not. The Reapers are made from the cultures and consciousness of the civilisations they harvest : that's lore. If you don't like it, blame Bioware.

 

[wright1978]

No, MEHEM is a moronic response from moronic people who want to delude themselves to thinking that they can change a writers ending, while the same people ignore key story developments in the game and don't want to think.

 

Pot ... kettle ... black in terms of moronic unthinking swallowing of tripe.