1624 réponses à ce sujet

[Torgette]

There are plenty of answers for that one that don't involve space Cthulu genocide. Life on earth's done an amazing job repeatedly running itself extinct. 

 

Sure but that doesn't make for a good sci-fi antagonist.

[Sidney]

Yep, I agree with this. I'd have left their justifications and motivations as unknowns - possibly with hints that even the Reapers themselves don't know why they do it. Any explanation for them was always going to be bad. So why even try?

I'd have been fine with this and might have even liked the they do it because they were programmed to do it eons ago and they never knew what the goal of their masters was. I might have been grimly amused if what we uncovered was that the original reason for them doing what they were doing has long since past and all of these reaps have been unnecessary.

All that said, while my personal tastes might be fine with don't know I just can't see that being accepted across the player base and so it needed a reason.

[Sidney]

That's because there was no logic. The premise of the Catalyst was not only not shown by the events of the story, it was affirmatively defied by them.
 
Mr. Btongue puts it best. The whole video is good but the relevant part is just over 2 minutes from that spot.

This Is is perhaps the best critique - they didn't really set up the punchline. Well there was a synthetic-organic fight but there was never any sense that the Geth were the main threat. They felt like it in ME1 but that was just due to being cooped by Sovereign while in ME2/3 they were fairly minor antagonists.

The really odd things is that, again, the alternate ending we know, dark matter/energy, was setup but only in a minor way so I'm not sure there is anything that seems like it was going to be a credibly established motive/theme. In the end, I agree wi your later post that "we don't know" was better.

[AlanC9]

An argument could be made, as the reapers we talked to said, that their goals cannot be understood by us. But I think that would be deeply unsatisfactory to most players.
Since they had to explain what the heck these genocidal robots were doing I guess almost any answer would sound bad. You look at a lot of your tippy top level mass muderers like Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Pol Pot and I doubt their "reasons" look really reasonable. They are understandable within the framework of their messed up ideologies - killing people with glasses because they must be bourgeoise makes a kind of sense. I never felt like even by that low bar the reaper logic worked.

The only rationale I ever heard that I liked -- and, honestly, I'm not sure if I cooked this one up myself -- is that the Reapers are doing this for fun, the way humans hunt and fish rather than going to the supermarket. (Just caught four nice fluke this weekend myself.) They let organics get just enough technology to make things interesting. The inefficiency of the process for harvesting is an illusion, because the Reapers are running a productive farming operation in parts of the galaxy where the relays don't take us. Sovereign was just a park ranger who got trampled by a moose.

[In Exile]

The only rationale I ever heard that I liked -- and, honestly, I'm not sure if I cooked this one up myself -- is that the Reapers are doing this for fun, the way humans hunt and fish rather than going to the supermarket. (Just caught four nice fluke this weekend myself.) They let organics get just enough technology to make things interesting. The inefficiency of the process for harvesting is an illusion, because the Reapers are running a productive farming operation in parts of the galaxy where the relays don't take us. Sovereign was just a park ranger who got trampled by a moose.

Honestly, I thought that had about the best Aesop you can get out of genocidal robots.

Although I would have run with functional immortality. Everything the reapers do to organics - even turning them into husks - uploads their minds to the reaper cloud. They're the result of a species running away from it owns mortality and running amok.

[AlanC9]

That's because there was no logic. The premise of the Catalyst was not only not shown by the events of the story, it was affirmatively defied by them.

I've never seen why this is a big deal. The antagonists in Bio games sometimes are just completely wrong about what they're doing. Sarevok, Malak, Loghain, the Valsharess, everybody in DA2..... let's leave Saren out because Indoctrination, but this is a thing.

[Nitrocuban]

Yep, I agree with this. I'd have left their justifications and motivations as unknowns - possibly with hints that even the Reapers themselves don't know why they do it. Any explanation for them was always going to be bad. So why even try?

Trying to explain something that "humans are not capable of understanding" according to Sovereign is kinda difficult.

I think Biware should have made a some crazy timetravel multiverse paradoxon story with the Reapers being the reason for a big galactic extinction event they try to stop from happening for a quadrillian of years until now.

Something like Bioshock Infinit's ending (fighting another version of ourself in a parallel universe) or the last episode of Star Trek The next Generation (anomalie traveling backwards in time caused by us trying to stop it) etc ...

That would be as close as we can get to "not comprehendable by humans" and still be considered as a closure to our journey.

[dreamgazer]

The only rationale I ever heard that I liked -- and, honestly, I'm not sure if I cooked this one up myself -- is that the Reapers are doing this for fun, the way humans hunt and fish rather than going to the supermarket. (Just caught four nice fluke this weekend myself.) They let organics get just enough technology to make things interesting. The inefficiency of the process for harvesting is an illusion, because the Reapers are running a productive farming operation in parts of the galaxy where the relays don't take us. Sovereign was just a park ranger who got trampled by a moose.

 

See, that scenario would still be the equivalent of giving scissors to the fish and waiting for them to learn how to use them before trying to catch them.  That's why I think their implementation of the relays and tech to "develop along the paths [they] desire" needed some kind of explanation. 

[Iakus]

Sure but that doesn't make for a good sci-fi antagonist.

Actually there are quite a few scifi stories that do this.  The ones that go out of their way to make aliens to be truly...alien...as opposed to the RUbber Forhead aliesn from stuff like Star Trek.

[Heimdall]

See, it would have been a lot easier for Bioware if they had decided on the Reaper's motivations before writing Sovereign's speech.

[Torgette]

See, it would have been a lot easier for Bioware if they had decided on the Reaper's motivations before writing Sovereign's speech.

 

They should've gone with the creepiest motivation which was reproduction, making the ME trilogy one giant romance.

[Natureguy85]

Technically you decide it yourself if you are the good or bad gay, if you land on that planet and instead of choosing to talk with them just attack and kill them, then it is pretty obvious.

 

I choose to be the bad gay.

 

And again - this thread makes me want to side with the Reapers.

 

I'm confident nobody is going to be conquering the Andromeda Galaxy.  And making that story isn't somehow "deep and meaningful" just because it's the epitome of human douchebaggery.

Why humans settle for how debase they can be is... disheartening.

 

 

Oh, your poor bleeding heart. It must be so tough.
 

Well we really don't know enough about the game yet to tell which side we're on. Perhaps a faction from Andromeda attacks us first, and we're sent to go dismantle them from the inside.

Also, I'd argue that if you're the one who found the planet, and you're the one who poured all your resources into it, and you're the one who built it up from nothing to become something, then you have a better claim to it than the guy from across the way who sat on his backside the entire time and now demands you hand it over because "it's in my space".

 

I second this.

 

This Is is perhaps the best critique - they didn't really set up the punchline. Well there was a synthetic-organic fight but there was never any sense that the Geth were the main threat. They felt like it in ME1 but that was just due to being cooped by Sovereign while in ME2/3 they were fairly minor antagonists.

The really odd things is that, again, the alternate ending we know, dark matter/energy, was setup but only in a minor way so I'm not sure there is anything that seems like it was going to be a credibly established motive/theme. In the end, I agree wi your later post that "we don't know" was better.

 

Actually, ME2 told us the Geth weren't the bad guys after all. The problem with ME2 and 3 was that the Reapers became minor antagonists. The prime movers were the Collectors and Cerberus respectively and no, the fact that they were Indoctrinated servants doesn't save it. That worked in Mass Effect because we didn't know about the Reapers yet. Maybe if they had the Collectors come straight out as the new Reaper slaves rather than try to make it mysterious, it could have worked. They also should have been something totally unknown, not something well known throughout the galaxy.

[Natureguy85]

I've never seen why this is a big deal. The antagonists in Bio games sometimes are just completely wrong about what they're doing. Sarevok, Malak, Loghain, the Valsharess, everybody in DA2..... let's leave Saren out because Indoctrination, but this is a thing.

 

No, you can't leave Saren out because it puts the exclamation mark on the point. You got to argue with him and even break through the Indoctrination to convince him that you were right. There is nothing even close to this in the ending to ME3.

 

You get to argue with Loghain and even if you can't convince him of your position, you can get him to help you or at least get him shut down by the others present.

 

What was Malek wrong about? He was just an evil dude trying to rule the galaxy, wasn't he? I didn't play the games with the others. I'm still playing the BG games and will get to Jade Empire so don't explain spoilers, please. Yes, I know they are old games, but I hadn't played them.

[AlanC9]

So it's only OK if the PC gets to show the villain The Error Of His Ways? Interesting. Could you get into why that's a problem for you? Also, did Sarevok get a pass because you don't learn that he was wrong about everything until after BG is over?

Let's take Malak off the list, actually. He's wrong about how his destiny worked, but no other Force user is able to foresee things any better than he did (though Palpatine did pretty well up until the last few minutes). It seems to be a rule of the setting that you only get enough information to be able to draw wrong conclusions.

[AlanC9]

 Actually, ME2 told us the Geth weren't the bad guys after all. The problem with ME2 and 3 was that the Reapers became minor antagonists. The prime movers were the Collectors and Cerberus respectively and no, the fact that they were Indoctrinated servants doesn't save it.

Why doesn't it?

[BabyPuncher]

The big mistake was trying to explain the motivation of the Reapers at all. Sovereign said that their motivation was beyond our comprehension, which, if Reaper psychology is radically different from our own, is totally plausible. Any explanation that we can understand just sounds nonsensical by definition.

 

That is a completely terrible idea.

 

How 'plausible' it is is really entirely irrelevant. There is no end of perfectly 'plausible' events that would nonetheless make absolutely garbage fiction and writing.

 

Players would easily see this for what this is. A ridiclous cop-out by the writers.

[In Exile]

That is a completely terrible idea.

 

How 'plausible' it is is really entirely irrelevant. There is no end of perfectly 'plausible' events that would nonetheless make absolutely garbage fiction and writing.

 

Players would easily see this for what this is. A ridiclous cop-out by the writers.

 

More to the point, Bioware repeatedly uses this cop-out in ME1 and it's nonsense there too. You can ask Vigil what the possible end goal of the reapers is, and its reply is that your meant to kill them, not understand them. Which is clearly just writer expy dialogue. 

[BabyPuncher]

More to the point, Bioware repeatedly uses this cop-out in ME1 and it's nonsense there too. You can ask Vigil what the possible end goal of the reapers is, and its reply is that your meant to kill them, not understand them. Which is clearly just writer expy dialogue. 

 

That is flatly nonsense. The player is wholly and entirely aware that sooner or later, they're going to get an explanation, just not now. They know this is not the last they're going to see of the Reapers.

[In Exile]

That is flatly nonsense. The player is wholly and entirely aware that sooner or later, they're going to get an explanation, just not now. They know this is not the last they're going to see of the Reapers.

It very much is the last time they see it unless a sequel happened to be green light. That's the last word on the reapers in ME1.

[Sion1138]

That is a completely terrible idea.

 

How 'plausible' it is is really entirely irrelevant. There is no end of perfectly 'plausible' events that would nonetheless make absolutely garbage fiction and writing.

 

Players would easily see this for what this is. A ridiclous cop-out by the writers.

 

Doesn't have to be. Even on its own the concept is valid, and though it may seem counter-intuitive, being that incomprehensible means just that, it can in fact be expanded upon.

[pdusen]

That is a completely terrible idea.

 

How 'plausible' it is is really entirely irrelevant. There is no end of perfectly 'plausible' events that would nonetheless make absolutely garbage fiction and writing.

 

Players would easily see this for what this is. A ridiclous cop-out by the writers.

 

It's not a cop-out if it makes perfect sense. Coming up with a sub-par explanation was the cop-out.

[BabyPuncher]

'Making sense' is not good enough. Any clown can write a story that 'makes sense.' Writing a good story is about tremendously more than it internally 'making sense.'

[Sion1138]

'Making sense' is not good enough. Any clown can write a story that 'makes sense.' Writing a good story is about tremendously more than it internally 'making sense.'

 

It can be done.

[pdusen]

'Making sense' is not good enough. Any clown can write a story that 'makes sense.' Writing a good story is about tremendously more than it internally 'making sense.'

 

Explaining the reaper threat is like rewriting the ending to Jurassic Park to explain a motivation for why dinosaurs are trying to eat us. Not only is it ridiculous and nonsensical, it's not even necessary because we don't care why they're doing it. They are dinosaurs and they eat people. That's all the story needs.

 

The Reapers are exactly the same. They are reapers and they periodically exterminate organic life. Our struggle against them is the story. We don't need to understand them, and if they operate on a whole other level of consciousness, we probably can't anyway.

[Komandor Shepard]

Reapers are very similar to people ... are egoists.