40 réponses à ce sujet

[RadicalDisconnect]

The Reapers feel like a bunch of amateurs in ME3, so given that you now control the largest and most powerful fleet in the galaxy, how would you have wiped out the opposition?

 

A few things I would've done:

1) Place a few Sovereign-class capital ships behind mass relays at all times so that any ship entering the system would get wrecked. With a pessimistic estimate of 300 or so capital ships this should be a breeze.

2) Send more than just one measly destroyer to control the geth. Commit at least several capital ships.

3) Presumably, the council still controls the Citadel and will close the arms as soon as any Reaper shows up, so just blockade the damn thing, and again place several capital ships behind the exit of the relay to wipe out any attempt to relieve the station. Make it so that no ships can enter or leave the system.

4) Target supply lines, fuel stations, and support infrastructure.

[themikefest]

With the numbers I have I would send a hundred capital ships to surround the Citadel to prevent any organic ship from leaving or entering

 

When I enter a system I would shut off the relay and have a dozen reapers patrolling the relay 

 

Once that's done, I would sit back on my lawn chair with a pina colada while my troops harvest this cycle

[cap and gown]

Develop big-ass fly-swatters.

[fhs33721]

1) Turn off the relay network after having captured the citadel. Or turn off that beam in London.

2) That's it.That was literally the only thing they needed to do in order to assure their victory.

[HK-90210]

Move a mass relay right next to Earth. Blow it up. Move a Mass Effect relay right next to Thessia. Blow it up. Move a mass effect relay right next to Palaven. Blow it up. Rinse and repeat until all galactic life larger than that of a single celled organism is completely extinguished.

[Wulfram]

Blitzkrieg the major industrial centres, using orbital bombardment to take them out of action.  You can "reap" them after you've destroyed their war fighting capability.  Letting large forces of capital ships get bogged down at places like Earth and Palaven is silly.  There's no excuse for Sur'Kesh still standing, given the disparity in forces.

 

Don't land your war ships.  It just makes them vulnerable.  And it's not like anything surface based is really a threat - and if it is, you can just blast the damn thing from space.  Like they should have done with London, if they couldn't just turn of the beam for some reason.

 

And yeah, defending the mass relays is obvious.

[Dantriges]

Defending mass relays won´t work. Seems the graphics designers didn´t get the memo that incoming ships don´t have to pop out close to the relay.

[KaiserShep]

Give Keeper 20 the keys to the castle and let him take the wheel. 

[The_Dead]

Attack the Cidatel. Without it, they wouldn't be able to finish the Crucible, or just attack the Crucible itself and end their hope.

[Broganisity]

Make better use of Sleeper Agents.

[teh DRUMPf!!]

 ITT: fans demonstrate, once again, how little they understand the Reapers and the central conflict.

 

The first problem was the question: commander, fleet, strategy. None of those apply. You guys need to get the "War" idea out of your heads here. To us, the organics, this conflict is a war. To them, though, it is not. That is not how they are approaching it.

 

 

The way to think of the Reaper/galaxy conflict is more like this: the Reapers are like a team of (human) construction workers and city planners are IRL, and the galaxy is like local fauna in their way. The animals may see the rise of a city around them as an attack on them, but the truth of the matter is, the humans do not really give a **** about them or their habitat. They just want this city built.

 

And sure, the humans will sometimes take measures that specifically target moving the animals out, killing them off, or destroying their habitat. However, it is typically never priority in the big scheme of things.

 

... Which brings me to my next point: guys, the Citadel can close. The Reapers will be seen coming from miles away. It is also the one thing that most species of the galaxy (the major players, at the very least) will quickly band together to defend. The Reapers would suffer as heavy casualties as they ever would in a cycle, and likely not even succeed.

 

... Which brings me to my next point: a Reaper is not analogous to a warship. It is, to them (using their words), a civilization. The loss of a Reaper is not a small matter. So saying that they should throw themselves at the threat to end it would be like the owls saying "stupid humans, if they just nuked this entire city then we would seize to be a problem to them any longer -- clearly they have no concept of war!" (never mind that the whole plan would fail if the Citadel arms close).

 

Finally, it should also be noted that the Reapers had no reason to believe this cycle was ever going to pose any challenge before the Crucible was revealed to be a thing, so there was no real reason for them to throw themselves at the Citadel rather than wear us down over time in a war of attrition. Hell, one could even have argued that the Crucible should not have alarmed them because no one was even sure that it would stop the Reapers.

[Goodmongo]

Concentration of force is the key.  If you send a few capital ships here or there you will lose.  Jarvik was right in this regard.  It takes decades or at least a year or two to take a planet.  So the key for both sides is to get into a battle where you have local superiority.

 

This has been a sound strategy and used by navies and armies throughout history.  If the reapers send 4 capital ships to the Geth then send your 400 dreadnoughts there in one fleet and kill all 4.  

 

let's say the reapers have 1000 capital ships and the organics only have 400 dreadnoughts.  You need 4000 to win.  So your only hope is to find small groups of reapers with your main fleet and destroy them piecemeal.  The reapers on the other hand need to force a large battle like they did at Earth.  This was their optimum strategy.  It was a mistake to send forces to the other worlds.  The reapers have time on their side.  Take out the organics one system at a time.

[von uber]

This 'citadel ' can close malarkey. So what? They close it, the reapers wait outside for half a year and once everyone inside is dead the catalyst can open it again...
... In fact why wait until they are dead? The catalyst could just open it anyway. . Like it should have done in me1..

[Dantriges]

Get the plans of the Crucible, analyze if synthesis is possible, then don´t care. Wait until the stupid organics dock the thing without shooting it. Appear to Shep in the guise of Avina, tell him some crap about how the Crucible uses the resident VI as some kind of interface, interactive handbook or so. Don´t give him/her any other options besides synthesis and refuse. Last option should be enough for him/her to go into the beam voluntarily.

 

Shep dead, everything is green now, purpose achieved, mission accomplished. Who cares about some idiot cuttlefish who got killed. 

[teh DRUMPf!!]

This 'citadel ' can close malarkey. So what? They close it, the reapers wait outside for half a year and once everyone inside is dead the catalyst can open it again...

Right, because all the navies of the galaxy will just sleep on Reapers congregating outside a defensible station like fish-in-a-barrel. 
 

... In fact why wait until they are dead? The catalyst could just open it anyway. . Like it should have done in me1..

 

There is no evidence to support the notion that the Catalyst controls the Citadel arms.

[Dantriges]

Right, because all the navies of the galaxy will just sleep on Reapers congregating outside a defensible station like fish-in-a-barrel. 
 

 

There is no evidence to support the notion that the Catalyst controls the Citadel arms.

 

The Reapers have a 100 to 1 advantage in capital ships. Even if you want to really lower the numbers it´s still somewhere 10 to 1 in ships, which is rather unlikely.* So yes they can leave a fleet double or triple the size of the combined navies of the galaxy outside the citadel. 

 

Well someone opened the citadel arms into flower shape in the ending. It´s more likely that the catalyst did it than the Crucible.

 

*50k cycles only for the last few million years and 60% loss rate of every reaper ever built.

[teh DRUMPf!!]

The Reapers have a 100 to 1 advantage in capital ships. Even if you want to really lower the numbers it´s still somewhere 10 to 1 in ships, which is rather unlikely.* So yes they can leave a fleet double or triple the size of the combined navies of the galaxy outside the citadel.

 

It still puts them at risk. There is nothing of strategic value for the galaxy to defend in that system if the Citadel is shut, so our side could fire on them freely and not worry about anything but immediate losses.

 

And also, I spelled out in my long post above why Reaper ships are not an acceptable loss if they can be at all avoided. A Reaper is not just any old war ship or simple resource. It is a nation in its own right.

 

Well someone opened the citadel arms into flower shape in the ending. It´s more likely that the catalyst did it than the Crucible.

 

 No, I disagree. I think it was the Crucible.
 

*50k cycles only for the last few million years and 60% loss rate of every reaper ever built.

 

60% loss rate?

 

Try 0!!

 

In a normal cycle, Reapers are sitting on top of every major homeworld before the galactic races can even think to prepare.

[themikefest]

 No, I disagree. I think it was the Crucible.

It was Shepard after TIM was killed that opened the arms 
 

60% loss rate?
 
Try 0!!
 
In a normal cycle, Reapers are sitting on top of every major homeworld before the galactic races can even think to prepare.

Reapers have taken losses in previous cycles

 

This is what they lost in this cycle

[Abraham_uk]

Pfft. Strategy. Who needs strategy?

 

I'd just trash talk Commander Shepard.

"This hurts you".

[teh DRUMPf!!]

It was Shepard after TIM was killed that opened the arms

 

Yes, you're right. I forgot that.

 

Also retroactively "Liking" your previous posts on this topic. 

[Dantriges]

 No, I disagree. I think it was the Crucible.

 

The Crucible is little more than a power source. Why should there be a control system on board of it? But it could be that the Catalyst is disconnected from actually influencing the Citadel most of the time. No idea why and how but at the time of the ending, the Reaper probably connected the Catalyst to the rest of the station. These walls and elevators weren´t moving around just because they felt like it. And it seems that the keeper weren´t involved.
 

60% loss rate?
 
Try 0!!

The 60% was an assumption in an attempt to deliberately downsize the numbers of Reaper. Mikefest calculation came around 13k something cap-ships plus destroyers in the 100k´s. If you say zero then have fun with 20.000 souvereign class reapers and somewhere around 200.000 destroyers. The galaxy has something around a 100 to 120 dreadnoughts (some losses after the initial attack), if you don´t fry the geth and an unknown number of cruisers and frigates. the Alliance has over 200 ships. If they only counted cruisers, carriers and frigates, the Alliance probably had around 40 to 60 cruisers prewar (1 to 4 to 6 per flotilla). The turian hierarchy has 32 fleets, no number of ships given besides the dreadnaughts and two carriers. Let´s say 250 cruisers. The quarians have heavy frigates and light frigates. The salarians have a small volunteer army like the alliance and their ships are expensive. Ah well, let´s say another 50 cruisers, Asari, let´s be nice, a 100.

So you could meet 2000 sovereigns and 20.000 destroyers chilling out at the Citadel. That the Citadel is behind them is to their advantage, so these pesky organics can´t FTL in their back. The Reapers can concentrate their firepower in the same directions or at least closer than having ships guarding their backside. And reaper cannons have a longer range than the ones from the galactics.

That´s one giant wall of red hot molten doom and every cap ship, cruiser and probably most of the frigates, the galaxy has, has seen the light and is now free for salvage. Doesn´t matter if you spread out, dreadnoughts aren´t known for their excellent evasive maneuvers and you can dedicate 10 destroyers for shooting every cruiser and still have 1900 sovereigns and 15000 destroyers free to shoot on everything else.

That´s 10% of the Reaper fleet. The only ones who could match that in numbers are the quarians and well we actually have no idea of the firepower of a civilian quarian ship. Armor doesn´t matter anyways, reapers can down or cripple a dreadnought with one shot (unless you stand still in Vancouver ).

 

Ok it´s a white room scenario. Don´t know if the Serpent Nebula would help the galactics to do some sneak attacks with lighter ships or if the reapers are able to see through it. Somehow I doubt that they would let the keeper maintain it if it would actually hinder them or evolution is a b**** and the reaper never cared enough. 

[Abraham_uk]

Honestly.

 

I wouldn't bother with the harvesting of organics.

In each cycle doesn't a bunch of Reaper Dreadnoughts get decimated?

 

5 per cycle may not seem very much, but when you factor in the fact that the Reapers have been around billions of years, sustainability considerations would also be in the billions of years.

 

I would destroy the Leviathans and no longer bother with the cycles. I would also get rid of Star Child. Who does he/she/it think it is?

I would then run the Reaper Collective like a dictatorship (because the Reapers already have indoctrination so this is not like controlling regular organics).

This dictatorship would keep going for as long as is possible. No need to lose precious dreadnoughts (i.e. Reaper nations) over some dumb cycle because some idiot came up with a "solution" to a theoretical problem.

[HarbingerCollector]

The simplest thing that the reapers would do.
Shut down the relays,and send a couple hundred reapers to exterminate one species at time.
I win.
destroy any traces of their history.check any planet,asteroid for proof.When done,correct the citadel system to be indipendent from the keepers again.Return to Dark space.
The end

Too bad ME3 didn't "remember" that the relays could be shut down by the citadel,even if the Keepers were disabled.
Just a reaper can come in and disable it manually,or indoctrinate a random guy on the citadel to unlock it,if a organic is required

[von uber]

Or have the catalyst do it.

[HarbingerCollector]

Let's just not talk about the catalyst

In my headcanon it doesn't exist,the only reason to make reason in that atrocious mess that ME3 is