116 réponses à ce sujet

[druidofwarp]

stillnotking wrote...

Plan C was, apparently, to abduct a few billion colonists and sneakily construct a human Reaper in a secret base in the galactic core.  This makes no sense at all.  If they wanted a human Reaper for whatever reason, the logical course of action would be to return to the Milky Way in force, subjugate and pacify the Council races, and then make whatever Reapers they feel like.  Setting aside the fact that we don't know how Harbinger woke up -- presumably this will be explained in ME3 -- his goal would be, like Sovereign's, to bring about the end of the cycle by awakening the other Reapers and opening the dark-space relay in the Citadel.  I can think of  many possible ways to do this, but none of them involve potentially tipping my hand by conducting massive (yet ineffectual) kidnappings with a proxy army.  Then there's the fact that the Collectors seem to have been around "off camera" during the events of ME1 (several characters in ME2 are familiar with them, including Shepard himself), which raises the question of why they weren't helping Saren in the first place.

ME2 is a great game and I enjoyed it tremendously, but I really hope they "retire" whoever wrote the main plot line before ME3 comes out.  If they don't, then we run a real risk of Plan D involving midi-chlorians.

If they wanted a human Reaper they probably couldn't just conquer all human space, which is implied by the fact they hit outlying colonies.

There are many questions unanswered but that keeps you guessing till the finale(presumably) like where did Harbinger come from?

Also Harbinger's chances of opening the Citadel Relay increase exponentially with a Reaper body on the frontlines what with all the damage Sovereign did on its own.

I would also not call the kidnappings ineffectual with what colonists theyd alread captured(hundreds of thousands) they got what appeared to be roughly half way to a full Reaper. Imagine what they could do with all the people on Earth.

[PingoBlack]

Fatal problem for OP:

If they wanted a human Reaper for whatever reason, the logical course of action would be to return to the Milky Way in force, subjugate and pacify the Council races, and then  make whatever Reapers they feel like.

They cannot do that, ever since protheans messed up the Citadel relay signal. Creating a new reaper to activate the Citadel again makes sense no?

It's what Nazara tried to do after all.

Reapers cannot just FTL to the galaxy (Eezo core charge buildup) so they can either travel sublight for millions of years, or make a new vanguard to activate the Citadel.

Now, which of those two makes more sense?

[ZennExile]

Faceman2006 wrote...

ZennExile wrote...

I think it was a huge mistake to focus so much on the characters in the story rather than let the story bring the characters to life.

QFT.

As for the plot of ME2, maybe the Reapers really are screwed? Maybe after Sovereign was destroyed, there was literally no way for them to get back into the Galaxy, so they've gone for the only option left - rebuilding another reaper within the Galaxy to try and open the Citadel relay again - that would be a hilarious ending / twist to ME3 - all through the game you're snubbed by people not believing you, until eventually it's just Shepard left on his own, ship taken off him, companions deserted him, just broken down in a heap. Meanwhile the Reapers hover at the edge of the Galaxy...

Reaper 1: So how do we get in?
Reaper 2: What?
Reaper 1: I said how do we get in?
Reaper 2: Er...weren't you handling that?
Reaper 1: What?...No!
Reaper 2: Oh.
Reaper 1 and 2: ...Bugger.
Reaper 3: Sooo...shall we go back home then?


But on a more serious note - is Harbinger meant to already be within the galaxy, or is it assumed he's with the main Reaper fleet? Because if he's with the main fleet, how could he communicate with the Collectors from outside the Galaxy?

There's no plot elements to answer this question.  It's all a mystery.  Like some Japanimation series that tells 1/10th of the story per show for 9 minute shows.  Thanks for 1/10 the plot followed by "too be continued" but I paid 60 bucks for this game.  It's not free on network TV once a week and sponsored by advertising.  It's sponcered by my gawdamn wallet and I'm left wondering where the other 40 bucks worth in gameplay went.

Of the games I've played since this time last year ME2 is by far the biggest buyers remorse I feel.  And I bought avatar the game.  Granted it was only $12 and used but that $12 bought me 10 times the amount of gameplay that ME2 delivered for 60 AND it has online multiplayer.  You mean to tell me Bioware can't even compete with a game based on a movie?  Really?  Nothing about ME2 makes much sense if you stop and think about it without being above the legal fanboi limit.

[Talogrungi]

Sareth Cousland wrote...

Still, that would make Sovereign redundant He wakes up every 50.000 years to check on life in the galaxy. If the collectors collected that data, it might as well have been Harbinger who woke up every 50.000 years and have the collectors send a signal to the Citadel if the time was right. Would be convenient - no reaper in the galaxy, no evidence, and no one to survive a jump through the omega relay to find out what was going on.

I really hope the collectors' research had to do with something else (themselves, probably... remember the talk about human genetic versatility and the fact that the collectors experimented on one of their own?).

Nono .. Sovereign was necessary to open the Relay to Darkspace.

The Reapers send the signal to the Citadel keepers to seize control of the Mass Relays to prevent organised resistance, then Sovereign toddles along to the Citadel, wipes out the feeble defense, docks with the Citadel tower and then opens the Darkspace Relay allowing the rest of the Reapers to come through.

Modifié par Talogrungi, 21 février 2010 - 10:47 .

[druidofwarp]

Sareth Cousland wrote...

Talogrungi wrote...

Sareth Cousland wrote...

If the collectors decided on which race was to become a reaper, Sovereign is redundant. His signal may also have been sent by the collectors. I sincerely hope that the collectors have been repurposed for one of two things:
1) they are simply the newest generation of collectors that the reapers have always been using
2) they are conducting their experiments to find out how to become a prothean reaper in the end

I misspoke; I'm sure that the decision on which race was "worthy" was made by the Reapers based on the information that the Collecters had, erm .. collected.

Still, that would make Sovereign redundant He wakes up every 50.000 years to check on life in the galaxy. If the collectors collected that data, it might as well have been Harbinger who woke up every 50.000 years and have the collectors send a signal to the Citadel if the time was right. Would be convenient - no reaper in the galaxy, no evidence, and no one to survive a jump through the omega relay to find out what was going on.

I really hope the collectors' research had to do with something else (themselves, probably... remember the talk about human genetic versatility and the fact that the collectors experimented on one of their own?).

Maybe they do scout for life and wake up Sovereign when they find it is advanced enough. Then Sovereign goes and opens the CItadel Relay, makes sense imo.

Also the Reapers seem to have a penchant for enslaving/using other races (keepers and collectors geth(?) various indoctrinated races) so perhaps the Collector research was to look into the possibility of enslaving humans. Also makes sense as humans can be made into Reapers thus meaning after the Reapers win they can have a theoretically nigh infinite amount of Reapers.

Edit: I very much disagree with you ZennExile even if there was literally no story the gameplay itself puts way above many games including Avatar. Of course both of our statements are opinions lol

Modifié par druidofwarp, 21 février 2010 - 10:51 .

[PingoBlack]

Faceman2006 wrote...

But on a more serious note - is Harbinger meant to already be within the galaxy, or is it assumed he's with the main Reaper fleet? Because if he's with the main fleet, how could he communicate with the Collectors from outside the Galaxy?

How can TIM communicate with you without the FTL comm? Ask EDI for the solution.

[Marta Rio]

Hmmm, how to make all of this fit together?  Maybe the reapers are doing more than one thing at a time?

Say for instance, that the reapers decided to end the current organic cycle because they've found a new species on which to base the next step in their evolution (i.e. humans).  So they start the devolved protheans/collectors working on the human reaper project .  At the same time, they decide it might just be easier to just start the destruction of organics already, that way they can easily harvest as many humans as they want and make a new generation of reapers.  But then Shepard throws a wrench in those plans, and the reapers get stuck out in dark space.  However, they still have the collector-run human-reaper side project in the works, which grows in scope in the 2 years that Shepard is out of comission.  Then Shep puts a stop to this in part 2.

So finally the reapers, having made a big mess of everything, decide at this point to just call the whole thing a loss and descend on the galaxy.

(Yeah, I realize that this probably doesn't make much sense, I'm just trying to fit the details into some sort of framework.  Feel free to poke holes in it.)

[Kanear]

well, I think its rather:

A, jupp, that was the plan (I still do not think the reaper was behind the Rachni)

B, makes sense, from the endfight, it looks like it takes a while to open the mass relay.

C, I dont think the plan was to open a gate again.. It just was to replace the fallen reaper until the rest of the 2 million reapers arrive. And because reapers being extremely arrogant (and they are!) thinking they just can do this.. they said the reaper was in a early stage, probably taking years to finish.

I still am wondering how they gonna kill the reapers. I can think of a virus (not really) or some stunt with the dark energy they were talking about a lot. just brutal force will not work!

[babylonfreak]

They probably left Sovereign behind as a contingency plan in case something went wrong with the Citadel, but since they were totally overconfident he was the only contingency they had, and he might not have been the brightest Reaper. Something did go wrong and he got flustered and started a lot of plans to figure things out. We know how that ended for him. So now Harbinger (who is in Darkspace with the rest of the Reapers) is forced to scramble for a plan C they had never even planned for, since plan A was obviously going to work as it always had, and plan B was Sovereign's problem. The last asset they have left in the galaxy are the Collectors, basically a biology lab with no real military value or power. He quickly cobbles together the idea of a Human Reaper to replace Sovereign.



We know how that turned out.

[Kampela]

It's part of Reaper culture to make things the hard and stupid way, because it gives organics some change to save themselves from Reaper salvation.

[Marta Rio]

Sareth Cousland wrote...

Yeah, I realize that this probably doesn't make much sense, I'm just trying to fit the details into some sort of framework.

That's my main gripe with ME2. I had a really good time playing the game, but plot-wise it is nothing more than a framework. Hopefully that will be amended in ME3.

Yeah,  I certainly hope the lack of details is just an effort to build up the mystery, and not the BSG approach of "let's write a bunch of stuff with no clear plan in mind, thus making it impossible to resolve all the hanging plot threads."

[nisallik]

stillnotking wrote...


Plan C was, apparently, to abduct a few billion colonists and sneakily construct a human Reaper in a secret base in the galactic core.  This makes no sense at all.  If they wanted a human Reaper for whatever reason, the logical course of action would be to return to the Milky Way in force, subjugate and pacify the Council races, and then make whatever Reapers they feel like.  Setting aside the fact that we don't know how Harbinger woke up -- presumably this will be explained in ME3 -- his goal would be, like Sovereign's, to bring about the end of the cycle by awakening the other Reapers and opening the dark-space relay in the Citadel.  I can think of  many possible ways to do this, but none of them involve potentially tipping my hand by conducting massive (yet ineffectual) kidnappings with a proxy army.  Then there's the fact that the Collectors seem to have been around "off camera" during the events of ME1 (several characters in ME2 are familiar with them, including Shepard himself), which raises the question of why they weren't helping Saren in the first place.

Plan C only needed a few million colonists, so it wasn't entirely mission impossible.  The Reapers as we can tell from the end is very far off from the Milky Way, so they were hoping to construct this Reaper to open a fast travel option for them. ;p

I'm sure with Sovereign's defeat, he was able to transfer all his data to the Reapers before he was destroyed or he could of had an active transmission with the other Reapers since he was opening a relay for them after all.

No one thought much of the Collectors, as they just traded with others and vanished back away.  Since Saren made an alliance with the Heretics, Sovereign thought it was unneccessary to involve their "work force" with what he thought would be such an easy task of taking over the Citadel.  If he would of been able to open the relay, they would of laid siege to the other planets and used the collectors to farm the ultimate race to create a new Reaper.

[Moleculor]

stillnotking wrote...
the logical course of action would be to return to the Milky Way in force,

How? They can't get there. (Do some research on how FTL flight works in Mass Effect before you insist they can.)

[Daerog]

Making a human reaper. They were probably trying to strengthen their numbers? They are hardly invincible with the derelict reaper and Sovereign. Trying to keep a low profile to not unify galaxy and still make more reinforcements to back up their goal.

If they invade, they freak galaxy out and unify it, thus Reapers die and likely not succeed. Reapers rely on the civilizations following their technology path, making them put a central government on the Citadel, and whack in all away in a single strike, they didn't plan on laying seige to the galaxy.



Events: Sovereign wakes up periodically to scan galaxy and see if galaxy is ripe for reaping, found good to go signals keepers, keepers don't respond, Keepers tampered with, they need a new way to activate relay, send in pawns to figure out how the keepers were first messed with, discover conduit, use conduit, Shepard stops pawns, notice the new human species and run experiments with Collectors, found able to make reaper with, start making a reaper to add more to their numbers, Shepard stops reaper making plant and kills collectors, Reapers don't have much more of an alternative other than to slowly invade and indoctrinate as many pawns as they can to finish galaxy off.



I don't really understand what's wrong with this plot, the Reapers are not all knowing or all powerful, they are giant powerful machines on a program loop and have been repeating the same scenario over and over and likely didn't expect the keepers to ever get tampered with, which is what saved the galaxy for Shepard in the first place, if the Protheans never did that, then ME1 would never of happened.

[stillnotking]

Talogrungi wrote...

Sareth Cousland wrote...

Still, that would make Sovereign redundant He wakes up every 50.000 years to check on life in the galaxy. If the collectors collected that data, it might as well have been Harbinger who woke up every 50.000 years and have the collectors send a signal to the Citadel if the time was right. Would be convenient - no reaper in the galaxy, no evidence, and no one to survive a jump through the omega relay to find out what was going on.

I really hope the collectors' research had to do with something else (themselves, probably... remember the talk about human genetic versatility and the fact that the collectors experimented on one of their own?).

Nono .. Sovereign was necessary to open the Relay to Darkspace.

The Reapers send the signal to the Citadel keepers to seize control of the Mass Relays to prevent organised resistance, then Sovereign toddles along to the Citadel, wipes out the feeble defense, docks with the Citadel tower and then opens the Darkspace Relay allowing the rest of the Reapers to come through.

If a Reaper has to be physically present to open the Citadel relay, then the events of the game would make more sense.  It still doesn't explain why Harbinger thought he'd be able to abduct billions of humans (and IIRC that is the number that would be required) without sparking a reprisal with which the Collectors were clearly unable to cope, but it certainly helps.

I'm wondering how you know that a Reaper has to be within X distance of the relay to open it, however.  I don't remember that being said anywhere, and I can't think of a logical reason why that would be the case.  My understanding of the ending of ME1 was that Saren was the one opening the relay, and Sovereign was just creating a distraction while he did it.

[Marta Rio]

nisallik wrote...
No one thought much of the Collectors, as they just traded with others and vanished back away.  Since Saren made an alliance with the Heretics, Sovereign thought it was unneccessary to involve their "work force" with what he thought would be such an easy task of taking over the Citadel.  If he would of been able to open the relay, they would of laid siege to the other planets and used the collectors to farm the ultimate race to create a new Reaper.

I think this is probably what the writers were going for.  The reapers had their "hands in many sinister soups," and were carrying out multiple tasks at the same time, rather than going linearly from plan A to B to C when one happened to fail.

[stillnotking]

Moleculor wrote...

stillnotking wrote...
the logical course of action would be to return to the Milky Way in force,

How? They can't get there. (Do some research on how FTL flight works in Mass Effect before you insist they can.)

By opening the Citadel relay.  Of course the idea that there would only be one usable relay is extremely poor planning, but I am not ruling out the idea that the Reapers are very stupid and/or arrogant.

[Sharn01]

It is finally starting.

[Admoniter]

nisallik wrote...
Plan C only needed a few million colonists, so it wasn't entirely mission impossible.  The Reapers as we can tell from the end is very far off from the Milky Way, so they were hoping to construct this Reaper to open a fast travel option for them. ;p

Yeah only a few million not like that would involve going anywhere heavily defended. First of all I doubt the Terminus has many populous human colonies, so I would hazard a guess that they would have to go into Citadel space to gather all the humans they need. Now while the Alliance and the Citadel may have a hands off policy with people in the Terminus I highly doubt they'd just sit there going "ah yes Collectors" while Colonies start disappearing. Also as we have seen despite being a massive rocket with an equally massive gun the Collector ship can't even hold its own against a stock SR-2 which has at best has cruiser level firepower.

I just can't see the Collectors being able to finish their little experiment without getting caught with their hand in the cookie jar, in this case human colonies in Citadel space... at which point they would pretty much be instagibed.

[Moleculor]

stillnotking wrote...

Moleculor wrote...

stillnotking wrote...
the logical course of action would be to return to the Milky Way in force,

How? They can't get there. (Do some research on how FTL flight works in Mass Effect before you insist they can.)

By opening the Citadel relay. 

... which is what you stopped them from doing in ME1. Or did you forget that?

[Daerog]

stillnotking wrote...

If a Reaper has to be physically present to open the Citadel relay, then the events of the game would make more sense.  It still doesn't explain why Harbinger thought he'd be able to abduct billions of humans (and IIRC that is the number that would be required) without sparking a reprisal with which the Collectors were clearly unable to cope, but it certainly helps.

I'm wondering how you know that a Reaper has to be within X distance of the relay to open it, however.  I don't remember that being said anywhere, and I can't think of a logical reason why that would be the case.  My understanding of the ending of ME1 was that Saren was the one opening the relay, and Sovereign was just creating a distraction while he did it.

Keepers were originally made to activate the Citadel relay, with Sovereign sticking around scanning galaxy and signaling the Keepers when ready. With keepers not responding, Sovereign had to do things personally as he was the only reaper nearby and only one who knew how to activate the Citadel, which resulted in ME1. Saren just turned off all relays around the Citadel, turned off security, and closed the arms when Sovereign was closing in to activate the relay personally.

[Marta Rio]

Admoniter wrote...
Now while the Alliance and the Citadel may have a hands off policy with people in the Terminus I highly doubt they'd just sit there going "ah yes Collectors" while Colonies start disappearing.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that sort of what they were doing?  Sure, they sent Ash/Kaiden to help install defenses, but wasn't the reason that Cerberus got involved precisely because of the Alliance/Citadel council's lack of action? 

Admoniter wrote...
I just can't see the Collectors being able to finish their little experiment without getting caught with their hand in the cookie jar, in this case human colonies in Citadel space.

I do agree that it seems illogical for the Collectors to have gone forward with the project and hope that no one would notice, or if they did notice, assume that they wouldn't have been able to do anything about it.  But maybe the whole thing is a little bit like Luke vs. the death star?  The collectors were arrogant about their defenses, and TIM/Shepard found a way to exploit their defenses by attacking with a small team rather than a large fleet.