357 réponses à ce sujet

[CreepingGeth]

wbaron wrote...


Maybe my interpretation of their numbers and strength is off, but I get the distinct impression that the entire galactic fleet would not stand a chance against a massed Reaper assault.

Yeah, going by the amount of Reapers in the final scene of the game... no fleet would stand a chance.

[Talogrungi]

Well, Mass Effect was always planned as a trilogy so in theory the final installment should result in the eradication of the reaper threat once and for all; with so many super-powerful reapers on the way, and given that the combined forces of the aligned council races could barely kill ONE of the buggers, that probably precludes a "unite the galaxy in an epic space fight" scenario.

Also doesn't fit with the metagame; small squad combat.

My theory is that agents of the reapers are going to use dark energy/power drained from active suns to construct a "new" citadel mass effect relay to dark space, and that it'll be the players job to find and destroy it by boarding it and fighting through waves of enemies to the big glowing "press here to save galaxy" button.

[wbaron]

DuffyMJ wrote...

I'm not convinced that humans were ignored by the Reapers.  My own feelings are that some one or thing purposely froze the Charon relay in ice (the Protheans had cryo tech as seen on Ilos) in order to protect us from the Reapers or shelter us from the galactic cycle.  Protheans clearly were aware of us and studied us, and the artiacts on Mars apparently included ships, Eezo, functioning tech. etc, which means it was likely overlooked by the Reapers.  My theory is that the science team that went through the conduit managed to reach Earth and were likely the ones who observed humans in the little story bit we get from the Consort's trinket about early humans.

Definitely an interesting idea, but why were the other races spared in the galactic purge?  I would have thought at the start of the last cycle, several races in the galaxy would have been more advanced than humans and yet they were not purged either.

There's a reason for the cycle.  They WANT races to build up technologically so that their tech can be harvested.   The reapers would have looked at humans like a very green banana.

[DuffyMJ]

I feel like it's distinctly possible that the game will open up SW Ep. 3 or KOTOR style in the midst of huge space battle/war going on the premise being that we're a year or so into the Reaper invasion already. actually, it would be nice to mix things up like that a bit.

[wbaron]

Talogrungi wrote...

Well, Mass Effect was always planned as a trilogy so in theory the final installment should result in the eradication of the reaper threat once and for all; with so many super-powerful reapers on the way, and given that the combined forces of the aligned council races could barely kill ONE of the buggers, that probably precludes a "unite the galaxy in an epic space fight" scenario.
Also doesn't fit with the metagame; small squad combat.
My theory is that agents of the reapers are going to use dark energy/power drained from active suns to construct a "new" citadel mass effect relay to dark space, and that it'll be the players job to find and destroy it by boarding it and fighting through waves of enemies to the big glowing "press here to save galaxy" button.

Not a bad logical idea, but where is the finality?  So you prevent one wormhole (or whatever) from being created.  What's to stop some new agent from trying something similar again?

Based on the way the authors portray the strength of the Reapers, it's unlikely that there will be a 'final battle' with 2 fleets massed either, that doesn't seem like it could ever go well for the galaxy unless they introduced some cheesy 'virus' or something.

I think the only finality is one of misdirection.  Somehow getting the reapers to head the wrong direction to another galaxy or something like that.

[BigKahuna25]

from the looks of it even if they go 10c it would still take millions of years.

[wbaron]

BigKahuna25 wrote...

from the looks of it even if they go 10c it would still take millions of years.

Why is that?  Do you know how far outside the galaxy they are?

If it takes that long, how did they get out there in the first place?

Modifié par wbaron, 07 février 2010 - 07:44 .

[MasonK]

I think the best finality is that the Reapers succeed. They are incomprehensible. We don't know what exactly they are, and how they got here. We only know they made it possible for our civilizations to meet and thrive(via relays) and made it possible for us to become extinguished. 

Why would a god create life and then destroy it?

Modifié par MasonK, 07 février 2010 - 07:47 .

[DuffyMJ]

wbaron wrote...

DuffyMJ wrote...

I'm not convinced that humans were ignored by the Reapers.  My own feelings are that some one or thing purposely froze the Charon relay in ice (the Protheans had cryo tech as seen on Ilos) in order to protect us from the Reapers or shelter us from the galactic cycle.  Protheans clearly were aware of us and studied us, and the artiacts on Mars apparently included ships, Eezo, functioning tech. etc, which means it was likely overlooked by the Reapers.  My theory is that the science team that went through the conduit managed to reach Earth and were likely the ones who observed humans in the little story bit we get from the Consort's trinket about early humans.

Definitely an interesting idea, but why were the other races spared in the galactic purge?  I would have thought at the start of the last cycle, several races in the galaxy would have been more advanced than humans and yet they were not purged either.

There's a reason for the cycle.  They WANT races to build up technologically so that their tech can be harvested.   The reapers would have looked at humans like a very green banana.

That's what I really don't understand -- the technology aspect.  Why wait for us to be technologically advanced if we're being harvested for DNA, it seems? I mean the tech we develop is really just their tech, anyway.

[Talogrungi]

wbaron wrote...

Not a bad logical idea, but where is the finality?  So you prevent one wormhole (or whatever) from being created.  What's to stop some new agent from trying something similar again?

Based on the way the authors portray the strength of the Reapers, it's unlikely that there will be a 'final battle' with 2 fleets massed either, that doesn't seem like it could ever go well for the galaxy unless they introduced some cheesy 'virus' or something.

I think the only finality is one of misdirection.  Somehow getting the reapers to head the wrong direction to another galaxy or something like that.

Yeah, finality is a sticky wicket .. I sort of have a half-conceived idea that the aim is to shut down a wormhole while the reapers are still travelling through it, or redirect it into a sun/black hole or something.

[BigKahuna25]

wbaron wrote...

BigKahuna25 wrote...

from the looks of it even if they go 10c it would still take millions of years.

Why is that?  Do you know how far outside the galaxy they are?

my mistake i i had 100 mil LY in my head for galaxy diameter but its 100k but still it looks in the final video that they could be up to half that distance outside the galaxy which would still take thousands of years to get back depending on just how fast their FTL travel is.

[MasonK]

They are not traveling from Dark Space to the galaxy on their own power.

[wbaron]

MasonK wrote...

I think the best finality is that the Reapers succeed. They are incomprehensible. We don't know what exactly they are, and how they got here. We only know they made it possible for our civilizations to meet and thrive(via relays) and made it possible for us to become extinguished. 

Why would a god create life and then destroy it?

That would be good.  I don't see it happening, but I would be thrilled if it did.  What other trilogy ends with the entire destruction of all advanced sentient life in the galaxy?

[DuffyMJ]

I'm a little curious about some of Harbinger's lines myself. That which you call reaper is your salvation through destruction, references to ascension, etc... Is it possible that there's something "good" about being reaper-ed?

[MasonK]

Part of you lives instead of dies?  Saren talks about being useful to the Reapers when the annihilation takes place.  They made the Keepers useful, and they can certainly make the geth useful.  They made the Protheans useful too(collectors).  So I assume becoming a Collector would be an organics salvation.  

Modifié par MasonK, 07 février 2010 - 07:57 .

[BigKahuna25]

DuffyMJ wrote...

I'm a little curious about some of Harbinger's lines myself. That which you call reaper is your salvation through destruction, references to ascension, etc... Is it possible that there's something "good" about being reaper-ed?

yeah and legion's talks about soverign he says something about there being many 'programs' in it maybe those are the people that were 'destroyed' I can't wait till ME3 is here...

[wbaron]

BigKahuna25 wrote...

wbaron wrote...

BigKahuna25 wrote...

from the looks of it even if they go 10c it would still take millions of years.

Why is that?  Do you know how far outside the galaxy they are?

my mistake i i had 100 mil LY in my head for galaxy diameter but its 100k but still it looks in the final video that they could be up to half that distance outside the galaxy which would still take thousands of years to get back depending on just how fast their FTL travel is.

The more I think about that ending, the more it irritates me.  I can't believe that they are 'driving' here using conventional means because of how silly it would make the entire plot.  Yet, what the hell was it trying to show?  It sure looked like lots of damned reapers about to hit the edge of the galaxy....

I don't know, it was a short scene, but it didn't look like faint stars in the distance, it look to me like they were close... very close.

[MasonK]

wbaron wrote...

BigKahuna25 wrote...

wbaron wrote...

BigKahuna25 wrote...

from the looks of it even if they go 10c it would still take millions of years.

Why is that?  Do you know how far outside the galaxy they are?

my mistake i i had 100 mil LY in my head for galaxy diameter but its 100k but still it looks in the final video that they could be up to half that distance outside the galaxy which would still take thousands of years to get back depending on just how fast their FTL travel is.

The more I think about that ending, the more it irritates me.  I can't believe that they are 'driving' here using conventional means because of how silly it would make the entire plot.  Yet, what the hell was it trying to show?  It sure looked like lots of damned reapers about to hit the edge of the galaxy....

I don't know, it was a short scene, but it didn't look like faint stars in the distance, it look to me like they were close... very close.

It was trying to give you a sense of peril that was not there in the entire plot of ME2. 

[wbaron]

MasonK wrote...

It was trying to give you a sense of peril that was not there in the entire plot of ME2. 

lol, then I'm even MORE irritated.  Might as well have said "Oh, by the way, the reapers are still out there... I know you didn't really get to see them in this game... maybe next time!"

[MasonK]

I felt the same way.

[sbear3737]

As far as speculating the arrival of Reapers, I'm gonna stick with the "speed of plot" and say it'll get here when they get here... I'm just looking forward to how they're planning to explain how it happens in-game.



But for the purpose of this conversation, I don't suppose anyone here knows any substantial amount of relativistic physics but no one mentioned the effects of relativistic time dilation... Given that there doesn't seem to be any use of "sub-space" or "hyperspace" or "slip-space" and that all vessels in the Mass Effect Universe still travel in regular space, only aided with mass effect fields and propulsion... this would suggest time really f***s up when you're AT and speeds greater than light (known laws obviously don't say/can't say anything about time dilation effects for FTL travel). But time essentially stops when you're travelling at the speed of light.



So for those who argue that the Reapers won't have enough "energy" to travel for such a long time and distance... well... that shouldn't really be a problem but we have no real way of knowing just how "Reaper-time" will work when they're travelling FTL so their energy expense may seem small compared to how far and long they've travelled.



On the other hand, because of these cleverly crafted mass effect fields (thank you Bioware), one could argue that relativistic effects cannot be conserved or even applied to such types of travel because a mass effect field can and probably has many side effects other than reducing/increasing mass.



For example, if you decrease the mass of a starship to minimal (the only way to propel it FTL I guess? I'm curious about the science behind it (if there is any)), then you could argue that there is almost "no mass" moving through space so you can't really apply any time dilation rules (even though it's valid for any reference frame... inertial or non-inertial, regardless of mass... but let's ignore that). It could be a logical conclusion that since there is hardly any mass transfer through space, the entropy of space would increase by a very small amount and therefore, any crazy effects such as time dilation of the local reference frame, would be kept to a minimum since the local frame is so similar to the rest of space.



Anyway... I realize this doesn't have that much to do with the conversation at hand, it's just something that popped into my head as I was reading through this thread and thought it perhaps interesting to some to theorize about the science behind Mass Effect FTL.



To make some real contributions, reaffirming what some people have already said, it seems logical that they would try to take the Citadel first if it is in fact a control mechanism for all mass relays in the universe. And as people pointed out, the only way to do this would be to directly assault the Citadel but this cannot be accomplished successfully unless it was a covert operation. Therefore, no massive invasion of the reaper-kind. But if Reaper technology is so advanced (and it is), would it not be easier to send in humanoid/alienoid entities to infiltrate the citadel from the inside rather than hump the control tower of the Citadel with a giant Reaper (did anyone else get that image when watching that ME1 cutscene...). Granted, Saren was technically an infiltrator... it feels like there could have been a lot more sneaky and efficient methods for accessing the Citadel though.



Meh. Just spewing out random thoughts...

[Abrazxas]

wbaron wrote...

VettoRyouzou wrote...

marshalleck wrote...

Oh, this thread again.

Someone answer me this: if they could get here in a reasonable time frame using FTL, why would Sovereign risk exposing their plan by repeatedly orchestrating attacks on the Citadel for the last 2000 years?

Again very simple it allot easier to wipe out a whole race when you have access to all there data as well as kill the head of government also the Citadel is the tool used to deactivate the other mass relays. It was more then just a fing back door.

Did you see what 1 reaper did to the nearly combined might of the galaxy?  What would the result of the attack been if he brought a buddy?   Now multiply that attack by 10's of thousands...

Let's not forget that the the Collectors and (some) Geth are also working for the reapers and they were notable absent in this 'critical' attack....

Seeing as they are immortal living ships, possibly millions of them exist in the dark space beyond the galaxy.  We never do quite get an exact measure of how old the Reapers race is.  The measure of the derelict one which is still alive in a sence cause it dreams was over 37,000,000 years old.

[Sharn01]

I still do not feel they are flying in, it was there to show how many of them there where, how devastating they will be if they find a way here.

Traveling at the speed of light it would take around 4 hours to reach the sol mass relay from earth, that is assuming its orbit is currently aligned with earth for the shortest travel.

Moving from one star system to another that are in the same cluster with only one mass relay would take weeks, even months at the speed of light, the game makes you travel to and from these system on a few occasions, much more often if you want to explore for side quests.

If you are far enough outside the galaxy that you can actually see the galaxy as they are in the end would take thousands of years even if moving at speeds which far exceed the speed of light, think that it takes a hundred of thousands of years to cross the galaxy at the speed of light, and if they where even remotly close to the galaxy there would be no distinct shape, just stars in the distance as if staring up at the night sky from earth.

Modifié par Sharn01, 07 février 2010 - 08:07 .

[wbaron]

BigKahuna25 wrote...

wbaron wrote...

BigKahuna25 wrote...

from the looks of it even if they go 10c it would still take millions of years.

Why is that?  Do you know how far outside the galaxy they are?

my mistake i i had 100 mil LY in my head for galaxy diameter but its 100k but still it looks in the final video that they could be up to half that distance outside the galaxy which would still take thousands of years to get back depending on just how fast their FTL travel is.

Well, the galaxy's diameter is pretty irrelevant since they are outside of it.  The only question is; How far outside?

But again, I can't honestly think or believe that they are using FTL drives to get here...  They are clearly looking for some mass effect way in or similar instantaneous travel.  Still don't quite get why they don't have a relay that only they can use or some other 1-way instant travel into where they need to be.  Seems like another oversight on their part.

[AlloutAce]

Well so far, Mass effect's plot has been centered around preventing the reapers from entering galactic space. Lets face it, a fight against thousands of reapers is astronomically hopeless... Victory lies in prevention. If 1 wiped out the entire citadel fleet, it would take hundreds of thousands, or possibly millions of ships too stop them. If the reapers find a way to get here, the war will already be over, thats not too say, over the next hundred million years they could arrive via normal FTL travel, but from the ending cinematic it looked like they were aways out.  Harbinger maybe the biggest kid on the block atm, but he's also a couple of hundred million light years away. If they have another plan too get into the galaxy, which seems likely, then shephard better get busy.