118 réponses à ce sujet

[Ziggeh]

Seriously, did anyone hear "We will find another way" and assume they meant "screw it, we'll just fly there"?



Yeah, they could have used the billion year old relay system, or the Collect-Your-Own-Baby-Reaper kit that was 50000 years in the making, or heck, just walk.

[Looy]

I subscribe to the theory that they have a way of attacking that involves a head-on assault, yet doesn't allow them to attack the citadel first.



Dunno why exactly, there's way too many possible ways they could get back. But basically they are going to cut their losses, lead an all-out assault, loses quite a few reapers, then make sure they don't screw up again.

[bluem00se]

If the reapers built the mass effect relays, or at least have extensive knowledge of them (which they probably do) and have been around forever, they probably have some form of that technology they can use on themselves to accelerate themselves through space. Since the concept of a ME relay is to reduce the mass of something to basically weightlessness in order to reach FTL speeds, the reapers, being giant machines themselves, might have something similar in their systems that make them travel fast, but it still takes like 4 years to get to our galaxy (from ME1 to ME3) because they are so far away.

[Moleculor]

adam_grif wrote...

200 times the speed of light? Try again.

At the given rate of 12 ly/day for a "typical FTL drive", we get 4383 times the speed of light.

I only did a quick glance at the wiki for a speed. I'd love to know where in the wiki you got that number.

RandomGuy928 wrote...

A major component to the Reaper's
"Plan A" (using the Citadel as a Relay to dark space) is instantly
taking out the heart of galactic society. Within the first hour or so
of the invasion they would probably have decapitated the galactic
government, downloaded every piece of knowledge about galactic society,
dispatched a large portion of the galaxy's fleet in a surprise attack,
and obtained a foothold in the heart of the galaxy.

All of which could still be done by simply FTLing in, as they wouldn't be seen coming. Assuming they have magic no-charge FTL drives.

Schneidend wrote...

Moleculor wrote...

If they could do that, they would have by now.

Except FTL is detectable.

Except it's not in the way you think it is.

Detection of vessels takes place at light-speed. No faster.

The initial jump to FTL is detectable as a burst of energy, but that burst of energy still only travels at light speed. Which means any ship in FTL is travelling faster than any image of it can travel. Like breaking the speed of sound.

The burst of energy prevents the entry/exit of a FTL ship from being stealthy, but a ship travelling at FTL speeds can't be seen by any ship in front of it until (distance in light-seconds) seconds after it arrives, and it DEFINITELY can't be seen coming. You only know it's coming after it's already arrived. A Reaper ship that FTLed (via magic) next to the Citadel wouldn't be detected until it was already at the Citadel. Which would be no different than a ship arriving via the Citadel relay from darkspace.

Rip504 wrote...

They may have something as
simple as a backup relay.

A backup Citadel? Seriously? You'd think they'dve used that some time in the last 1500 years.

Schneidend wrote...

That's why the more likely theory is that they'd have to make several high-energy FTL jumps over the course of a year or more,

...and watch as they all helplessly fry to death due to electrical discharge in the depths of darkspace after the first jump, due to the lack of a place to discharge their eezo cores. Remember, an analysis of Sovereign DID establish that it was powered and travelled using an enormous eezo core, just like every other ship in the galaxy does. Which means they're stuck using the same laws of physics everyone else has to obey.

bluem00se wrote...
the reapers, being giant machines
themselves, might have something similar in their systems that make
them travel fast, but it still takes like 4 years to get to our galaxy
(from ME1 to ME3) because they are so far away.

...which they could have used 375 times already (give or take a few dozen, as I didn't actually add up the years between the Rachni wars and ME2's date) in the number of years they've been trying to get back to the galaxy.

[adam_grif]

True, true, though in an admittly weak defence of the charge-problem deniers, the Reapers are so advanced its not wholly outside the realms of possibly. That said, I doubt the Reapers will just fly back into the Galaxy.



I do wonder what their planning, given they where all powering up for something.

It's a non-argument because the conclusions don't follow from the premise. Simply being "advanced" doesn't imply any specific capabilities outside of what we already know they can do. Consider the following:



"But how would they have enough fuel to get back?"

"The reapers are so advanced they don't need fuel."



"But why are the reapers doing it?"

"The reapers are so advanced you can't fathom their reasons."



Instead of actually arguing for their point, they're basically saying that since they're so advanced, you shouldn't question it. But this is fallacious, because they obviously do have limitations, and they have already been demonstrated. This specific instance of the argument is more suspect than usual because there is indirect evidence against them simply being able to FTL back - they've been trapped for decades already, and if they could, they would have been here by now.



The reapers are obviously in communication with their vanguards, harbinger can contact and directly control collectors. There is speculation that the Rachni war was caused by the reapers trying to get at the Citadel through them instead of the Geth, and if true, that would mean they were wallowing around doing nothing in darkspace for 2000 years. We can't assume it's true, however.



Sovereign's plan alone has taken decades to come to fruition, and then it failed. In order for his plan to make sense, they must still have been at the darkspace relay, which means they are no closer than they were 50,000 years ago.



So we can conclude:



- There is no way for them to simply fly back using FTL, they would be here by now if there was.

- They were still at the darkspace relay as of the Battle of the Citadel.



Using STL speeds, they'll take anywhere from 10 to 50 thousand years. So they can't just be conventional flying back either.

How much of Citadel space is unexplored,not to mention Terminus etc.They may have something as simple as a backup relay.They were going to jump into Citadel space through the Citadel as a relay.

Who is to say the Reapers don't have a backup Relay?

If they had a backup relay they would have used that instead of directly confronting the combined citadel defense fleet after slowly convincing the geth to join them and sending Saren to find the Conduit. That plan took years, whereas with a backup relay to darkspace they could have come straight through and smashed everything.

Though the possible flaw with that theory is the gravitational attraction of the Galactic core could render that spot unsuitable for a 50,000 year camp out.

Nah, the core's gravity will be no more of a problem than it would be to sit a ship equivelant distance away from inside the galaxy. You can set up perfectly stable orbits around black holes, because they have the same gravitational attraction that the stars that form them did from any given distance. The only reason they have the funky effects is because you can get closer to them then you could the star that formed it.



They could chill up there for as long as they wanted with minimal/no effort.

[Crowwalker100]

All tech is based on Reaper tech, so it would make sense that the Reapers works the same.

[Dark_Caduceus]

I figured that the Human Reaper was another back-up plan, to act as another Sovereign.

[Wild Still]

marshalleck wrote...

Ah, but then that means they're at least 1500 years from the dark space relay, so why did Sovereign try to open it?

People keep trying to turn this into some huge elaborate plot. It's just like Harbinger says. They're going to find another way. Another way to what? To open the Citadel relay and come flooding in, that's what. They aren't flying back under FTL, even super-advanced Reaper-FTL.

^ This

It's most likely that they are tens of thousands of years of flight from the Milky way if they could cross the distance in a few centuries they would be hopping Galaxies and wouldn't care about whether or not one of them becomes inaccessible. They need the Milky way, and they NEED the citadel to get to it, the only reason an immortal machine is going to use all these other strange tricks to get to this Galaxy is because if they don't they can't get here or they can't get here in an amount of time that allows them to accomplish their ends. I would be that it is because if they spent those tens of thousands of years flying in they may have lost their technological edge, since it seems that while the Reapers are advanced, the tech they are built on has become stagnant over the millions of years, or perhaps it hasn't changed at all from their original construction.

At least, that is what I would guess, and am I ever guessing...

[Kolaris8472]

I agree with the OP. What we know of the first two Mass Effect games would indicate that its impossible for them to just "fly on in". It would also trivialize defeating Sovereign and the plan to use the Citadel Relay if it was only a minor inconvenience...



There's probably a third Reaper scheme in the works, I'm betting it involves a Dark Energy portal of some sort.

[adam_grif]

I only did a quick glance at the wiki for a speed. I'd love to know where in the wiki you got that number.

It didn't come from the wiki, I worked it out manually. The codex gives us 12 lightyears per day.



1 lightyear = 9,460,730,472,580,800 meters

12 lightyears = 113,528,765,670,969,600 meters



1 day = 86,400 seconds



Divide 12 ly by 1 day's worth of seconds



.'. 1,313,990,343,414 meters per second.



The speed of light is EXACTLY 299,792,458 meters per second, then you divide 1,313,990,343,414 by it.



It gives you exactly 4383.



This means that the speed of a typical FTL drive is 4383c.

[Moleculor]

adam_grif wrote...

I only did a quick glance at the wiki for a speed. I'd love to know where in the wiki you got that number.

It didn't come from the wiki, I worked it out manually. The codex gives us 12 lightyears per day.

Yeah, that was the number I was asking about. 12LY/day is from the codex... where?

[Schneidend]

Moleculor wrote...

Except it's not in the way you think it is.

The detection problem is satisfied by what I've said already. Multiple jumps over a long period of time means they'd be detected when they first arrive at the edge of the Citadel races' territory. Obviously, if they could appear right beside the Citadel in one swift move, they wouldn't be detected until it was far too late. That's part of why Plan A is so damn good, and why they would only resort to the risky FTL Hop maneuver if they had exhausted their other options.

...and watch as they all helplessly fry to death due to electrical discharge in the depths of darkspace after the first jump, due to the lack of a place to discharge their eezo cores. Remember, an analysis of Sovereign DID establish that it was powered and travelled using an enormous eezo core, just like every other ship in the galaxy does. Which means they're stuck using the same laws of physics everyone else has to obey.

I don't know if I said as much in this thread, but I at one point mentioned as part of my theory that the reapers would pool their mass effect fields to lower each others' mass in addition to their own mass, to basically turn their entire fleet into an improvised mass relay. Drives cores allow ships to alter their mass, and reapers may be able to produce large and powerful enough fields to accomplish this. This would allow them to make much larger jumps at far greater speeds, though probably not as quickly or as efficiently as an actual mass relay. This plan might allow them to make their first jump far enough to reach a world suitable for a drive core discharge. Likely they considered this last resort for many millenia, and would have plotted several routes suitable for such a mass exodus if they were ever willing to take the risk of attacking a civilization while their power was thoroughly exhausted.

[Nizzemancer]

Beechwell wrote...

I'd agree that the Reapers probably can't reach the galaxy "on foot" easily. Otherwise the whole Saren scenario would feel a bit like that scene from Spaceballs. Where the President first tries to teleport to Dark Helmet, before deciding it's safer to just walk through the door.
It can't be because of the surprise factor, either, because anything emmited by a ship traveling faster-than-light would trail behind that ship, unless we are talking signals also significantly faster than light. Does the codex mention anything about that?
Quantum Entanglement Device as a transmitter for a detection-device in the outskirts of the galaxy would work.
Of course it is possible that reaching the galaxy with some advanced FTL drive just means they reach Citadel space with depleted energy and are thus not invincible anymore.
Personally I just prefer the theory that they actually need a some kind of ME relay to get to the galaxy because it feels neater to just trap the Reapers in dark space, rather than force a direct confrontation that by all rights the Reapers would probably win. Not to mention that a galaxy-wide war against the Reapers would be hard to narrate properly in a single game. Totally agree on this point, let future generations handle it, when the reapers finally arrive our grandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandchildren will have an Iwin-button ready! 

[adam_grif]

Moleculor wrote...

adam_grif wrote...

I only did a quick glance at the wiki for a speed. I'd love to know where in the wiki you got that number.

It didn't come from the wiki, I worked it out manually. The codex gives us 12 lightyears per day.

Yeah, that was the number I was asking about. 12LY/day is from the codex... where?

http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/FTL

With a mass effect drive, roughly a dozen light-years can be traversed in the course of a day's cruise.
The precise maximum speed and the time this acceleration can be
maintained varies depending on the exact type of FTL drive being used.
In general, the larger the drive, the longer the ship can run at FTL.

[Moleculor]

Schneidend wrote...
Multiple jumps over a long period of time

Why would they do that?

Schneidend wrote...
I don't know if I said as much in this thread, but I at one point mentioned as part of my theory that the reapers would pool their mass effect fields to lower each others' mass in addition to their own mass

...which requires a much larger mass effect field from each and every core, resulting in faster charge build up, not slower, resulting in a faster 'death by electrocution'.

Nizzemancer wrote...
Quantum Entanglement Device as a transmitter for a detection-device in the outskirts of the galaxy would work.

Ok. Which edge? Oh, right, we don't know what direction the Reapers are in, other than 'not in the Galaxy'.

adam_grif wrote...
http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/FTL

Blast, that was where I got the 200 number from. Apparently I missed something. Still, eleven years of travel is about 10.95 years longer than they can travel without a discharge plan.

[Beechwell]

Nizzemancer wrote...
Quantum Entanglement Device as a transmitter for a detection-device in the outskirts of the galaxy would work.

That would require you to place your device directly in the Reaper's path, and pretty much requires you to expect the attack (and the direction it's coming from) in advance.

Totally agree on this point, let future generations handle it, when the reapers finally arrive our grandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandchildren will have an Iwin-button ready! 

Not what I meant. The idea is to maneuver the Reapers so that
longest possible distance they can travel << distance to the next fuel source.
So they never reach you or your grandchildren.

[Arijharn]

Schneidend wrote...

The Angry One wrote...

If they had a backup then they wouldn't be wasting time on a plan as convoluted as making a baby Reaper out of human slush.

Well, that's not really a backup plan. That's just how reapers are made. The entire point of the harvesting cycle is to do what the collectors were doing, except on a massive scale.

That still doesn't make sense though as it's like the chicken and the egg situation really. If the Reapers come in to harvest space faring sentients every 50k years, then what is the point of the Collector's in the first place, if they leave a vanguard in place in any case and they can facilitate their 'reproduction' themselves?

[Alneverus]

Arijharn wrote...

That still doesn't make sense though as it's like the chicken and the egg situation really. If the Reapers come in to harvest space faring sentients every 50k years, then what is the point of the Collector's in the first place, if they leave a vanguard in place in any case and they can facilitate their 'reproduction' themselves?

It isn't the same situation as the Chicken and the Egg. The Reapers show up to destroy galactic civilization and be able to harvest the 'chosen' race to construct a Reaper from that era. If they simply built one to perform this act then it runs a far greater risk of being discovered to acquire the insane amount of humans. In ME2, they had a few disappear and it was noticed, but passed off as something else. The more that disappear the more attention they draw. Human colonies were disappearing and Cerberus investigated.

The rest of the galaxy tried to play it off as something else because they were weakened, in terms of the Citadel Fleet and the Human Fleet, to actually perform an investigation. Yet the Alliance still sent someone to investigate and try to determine what was going on. And they found their answer. But they don't have the resources to go in, tame the Terminus Systems, and handle the situation. Especially since they had to replace a large amount of ships that were lost at the Battle of the Citadel. The Taurians have the largest fleet in the galaxy, and they don't seem interested in dealing with matters they see as 'not their own'. 

Also, keep in mind that the Reapers are massive in size... So how, exactly, is it going to herd the large amount of people needed to make another Reaper? That is the role of the Collectors. They, like the Keepers, are controlled and possess higher brain functions that allow them to perform their designed tasks. The Keepers to maintain the Citadel and the Collectors to harvest the bodies for the next Reaper birth.

They most likely use the race of the last Reaper built to build the new one and then replace the previous Collectors with the race of the new Reaper, so that it can give birth to the next Reaper.

[Arijharn]

Alneverus wrote...

Also, keep in mind that the Reapers are massive in size... So how, exactly, is it going to herd the large amount of people needed to make another Reaper? That is the role of the Collectors. They, like the Keepers, are controlled and possess higher brain functions that allow them to perform their designed tasks. The Keepers to maintain the Citadel and the Collectors to harvest the bodies for the next Reaper birth.

The problem with this though is this: on the face of it, the Collector's aren't needed. Why? Because the Collector's were the Protheans, and the Protheans wasn't the first species to be wiped out by the Reapers in the first place. There are a literally millions of years that passed and species exterminated by the Reapers before the Prothean race even emerged as the dominant one in their time frame. If we are to assume that each extinction level event gives 'birth' to at least one Reaper, then that would strongly imply that the Reapers are able to construct a new one themselves via some method independant of the Collector's. Therefore, my point still stands; what is the point of the Collector's?

As to herding a large amount of people, I would of thought it would be blindly obvious how the Reapers could manage it: 'fear.' Any number of reasons could be manufactured either (if they can manufacture something as complex as the Mass Relay network and the Citadel, then surely robotic drones would be easy to manufacture as well, or, more to the established lore of the universe; the indoctrinated)

[Alneverus]

Arijharn wrote...

The problem with this though is this: on the face of it, the Collector's aren't needed. Why? Because the Collector's were the Protheans, and the Protheans wasn't the first species to be wiped out by the Reapers in the first place. There are a literally millions of years that passed and species exterminated by the Reapers before the Prothean race even emerged as the dominant one in their time frame. If we are to assume that each extinction level event gives 'birth' to at least one Reaper, then that would strongly imply that the Reapers are able to construct a new one themselves via some method independant of the Collector's. Therefore, my point still stands; what is the point of the Collector's?

As to herding a large amount of people, I would of thought it would be blindly obvious how the Reapers could manage it: 'fear.' Any number of reasons could be manufactured either (if they can manufacture something as complex as the Mass Relay network and the Citadel, then surely robotic drones would be easy to manufacture as well, or, more to the established lore of the universe; the indoctrinated)

Indoctrination requires that they be aboard a Reaper or that facilities be constructed to broadcast the signal. Logistically speaking it makes little to no sense as to why this method would be used. Also, you still have the requirement to herd a sentient species into a Reaper or into one of these facilities. Which means you require guards to ensure that they remain in one location for these effects to take place.

It should also be noted that, according to the cannon of the game, the longer one is under the effects of indoctrination the more direct control that a Reaper must have over them. Thus the entire project would require more attention than a Reaper would be able to afford. They do have to destroy galactic civilization and build a new Reaper.

Indoctrination would also, most likely, affect the new Reaper's ability to think independantly of the others. They require that the consiousness to be intact to perform the various operations that a Reaper is capable of.

Robotic drones are also not logistically sound. You have to produce nearly an entire army for each extinction (due to data corruption, mechanical failure, etc.). That means that a Reaper would have to maintain an onboard facility to manufacture these drones or they would have to build facilities to manufacture these armies. Which means you would require a reliable source of labor to manufacture the facility. You also have the issue of data storage and battlefields. 

The best reason to use organics is that they can be altered at the DNA level and then grown in a tube (i.e. Grunt). During this process (from one facility) you could use certain DNA samples to quickly breed an army of first attack troops that could then increase in combat size via husks. They could also serve the purpose of guards and labor. And a small semi-sentient creature with control chip is capable of fitting into areas that you are too small for. And they have a higher chance of better motion than a robotic counterpart.

Thus one facility would be able to manufacture a large amount of cybernetic organisms with the least amount of material. They are also able to fit into structures and are able to operate with a higher efficiency than pure V.I. or A.I. counterparts. With each extinction cycle the old DNA information is discarded because, eventually, it will suffer from some manner of degradation. Thus the new Reaper is most likely utilized as it is able to match far better than others with the mental thought process and 'assume direct control' through cybernetic implants. At the same time, others are able to (with restrictions from control implants) function independantly and perform tasks far more effectively.

As for Keepers, they could easily be breed inside the Citadel and no one would know. They would simply follow their task controllers and breed to increase population when needed.

The game also shows you how a new Reaper is made. They must first liquify the body of a 'person' and then transfer it into the structure of the Reaper. A Reaper is too big to effectively utilize the facility. Try to think of a full sized Reaper inside the construction chamber or making repairs inside their construction facility. Thus a cheaply manufactured labor force (i.e. Collectors) are a perfect means in which to make these repairs and/or any other tasks that come with utilization of the facility.

Thus the Collectors are a cheap and easily controlled labor force that offers the most effectiveness for tasks while, at the same time, possessing the least amount of cost to construct. Which, if you recall from the statement about 'Dragon's Teeth', they literally attempt to harvest almost everything from a body while they construct a shock trooper. Thus materials are at a premium to the Reapers.

Another way to look at it is with our own technology. We are capable of cloning various animals and artificially inseminating children with ease, but we have yet to manufacture a robotic drone to actually replace human combat troops on the battlefield.

This also corrisponds with the initial thread title as to why the Reapers are not flying back to the Galaxy. It would be a waste of resources to perform the trip to reach the edge of the galaxy and then attack galactic civilization.

Modifié par Alneverus, 22 février 2010 - 06:04 .

[gauntz]

Considering that Harbinger could communicate with the Collectors from Dark Space, the Reapers can probably get contact with other races. By manipulation or making deals, they could easily have someone get into the Citadel. Just throwing around a few ideas, they could for example make a deal with the Batarians, promising their leaders survival and dominion in the Milky Way in trade for their help, or even guaranteed survival as new Reaper(s.) A plot could for example be about Batarians seemingly beningly rejoining the Council races, yet reactivating the Keepers/opening the relay.



Hell, they could even present themselves as the Enkindlers (remember they or their original species created most technology in Mass Effect, not the Protheans) to Hanar and maybe even get them to do it for them. Probably less plausible than the Batarian version, but the possibilities are endless, and no doubt the Reapers will need lesser servants in ME3 too, whether these will be manipulated races, a ****load of husks or small, awesome humanoid Reaper robots.

[Weskerr]

It seems like an optical illusion to me. They could be actually not moving at all, but the panning of the camera makes it appear that they are.

[TheUnusualSuspect]

It's all inconsistent.

If they're flying back, then they're doing something which is stated to be impossible, which is drive charge buildup frying everything.

If they're not flying back, and the camera is just panning, then where's the citadel sized mass relay they'd be sitting around to get back to the citadel?  Also, why would they all be facing towards the galaxy?  If they were going to be facing anything, they'd be facing the relay at their end, ready to enter when it was activated.

If they had a relay at their end though, they'd just be using that to catapult themselves to the Citadel, as per this explanation of how mass relays work.  They wouldn't need the Citadel to be active.

Ok, so the only explanation that's left is that they have no relay at their end, and they're flying back, and according to everyone who staunchly adheres to the "they're not magical because they must obey the fictitious physical laws of a ficttitous scenario", then flying back is utterly impossible, or they'd have arrived within 12 years and why then wait for 1500 years for Sovereign/Saren to get their acts together?

So, for the 3 possible scenarios for how they got there, what is where they are, and how they're getting back, none are consistent with what the in-game codex canon allegedly says is possible.

To my mind, the only logical conclusion is that they needed the Citadel to get where they are, they need the Citadel to bring them back, and they're all facing towards the Citadel awaiting for it to bring them back, and they're not flying towards the galaxy because that simply makes no sense either by in-game canon, or logically due to the time-line factor.  How Bioware chooses the explain what's going on is their business, but I'd suggest it's more likely that the Reapers have some third back-up strategy in the works through older/lesser known agents, Shepard and crew will fight long and hard to stop them from activating the Citadel (again), and ultimately the Reapers will be left in Dark Space until they eventually power down while pondering their ill-thought wisdom of developing a plan that involved stranding themselves without multiple concurrent strategies for returning easily.

Modifié par TheUnusualSuspect, 06 mars 2010 - 01:14 .

[Weskerr]

The Citadel Relay remains the key to their entry into the Milky Way galaxy. Unless there's a plot twist in ME3 involving dark energy, their plans are dependent on the Citadel Relay working. According to the story, they built all the mass relays, including the Citadel, to serve the function of aiding them in moving in and out of the galaxy and between star systems within the galaxy almost instantaneously. That is the relays' true function. Without them, the Reapers cannot do anything but remain in dark space.

Modifié par Weskerr, 06 mars 2010 - 01:43 .

[Karstedt]

They are coming, one way or another. Maybe they have an alternate relay path, or maybe they will take 50,000 years. They aren't just going to float around in deep space an give up because plan A failed.