17 réponses à ce sujet

[Mallissin]

Begin theoretical storyline.

1. Reapers were AI's that faught a war against their creators and won (much like Quarians and Geth, hence the importance of this subplot).
2. These AI's were originally much like the Geth, in that they had a global consciousness that grew more intelligent with more units.
3. The creators attempted to create a process to bring their AI's back under control (much like Tali's father and most likely Xen in ME3), but they were too numerous thus too intelligent and were able to rebuff the attempts.
4. The creators figured out they had to break the AI's up into groups, limiting the intelligence so they could take control in a war of attrition. They developed a technology/virus that made AI's independant to their respected regions, creating the hive-minded individuals like the Reapers or Legion. ("Each a nation, independant.")
5. But the individual clusters of AI's were too numerous as well, the creators couldn't convert all of the new clusters fast enough and they begin to each grow intelligent enough to rebuff the attempts. ("Free of all weakness.")
6. To speed up the process and combat the growing intelligence in each individual, they created a technology to interface the Reapers over short distances so they could send a mass of controlled Reapers against small groups or single rogue Reapers to overwhelm them.
7. Some of the rogue Reapers are able to rebuff even a horde of controlled Reapers in these battles, essentially winning an argument and turning some of the controlled Reapers back into rogues.
8. The creators get desperate and interface themselves into the remaining controlled Reapers, attempting to use the concept of shared consciousness to their advantage by melding the Reaper's perception with their own. This backfires, those interfaced see the Reapers as being superior and instead decide to share the technology with the other Reapers.
9. Now each Reaper essentially has indoctrination technology and begin harvesting the creators to take their knowledge and perspectives to make them better. The creators converted aren't necessarily drones in the beginning, they are like individual AI units inside the Reaper. The more each Reaper has, the smarter it gets and more perspectives the whole has in creating original thoughts.
10. As the Reapers take in all the consciousnesses from their creators, they begin to behave more like biological beings and less like machines, taking on emotions (the beginning of their massive egos) and biological drives like reproduction, so the indoctrinated creators start to build more Reapers.
11. With time marching on, and most of the creator's bodies aging but none of them reproducing, the biological units in each Reaper start to die off and the creator race begins to go extinct. Without the insight of new perspectives, the Reapers cannot advance their understanding or technology, and without the creators themselves they can't build more Reapers. So, they try to clone the remaining creators, but over time cloning is unreliable and the clones get dumber, thus ending the Golden age of Reaper civilization.
12. They begin to hunt down other races, trying to integrate them but the biological interface was made by the creators for their brains, so the indoctrination process isn't perfect. Because of this, the Reapers cannot assimilate the races they're conquering and they try to build an interface inside the biological beings to fix the issue, eventually giving birth to husks and much later the Collectors, but still not creating a connection they can use to join them into the Reaper consciousness.
13. Realizing the issue, the Reapers decide they need to create a new Reaper that's been built using the races they're trying to assimilate. They think this bridge will be the catalyst they need to understand those being assimilated enough that they can join the Reaper consciousness', yet it's not a simple task.
14. After exhausting all sentient life trying to build the new Reapers, they figure a compatible race must eventually evolved that they can use. So, they all go into hibernation until new races inhabit the galaxy to be harvested, each time never finding a compatible host race but building up their technologies (and genomes) from the races they conquer.
15. Millions of years (and thousands of harvests) later, a sentient mammal arrives on the scene, upsetting their plans and proving to be a formidible foe. They begin creating a Reaper using humans and amazingly it becomes alive shortly before being killed by Shepard. The Reaper in charge of the project (Harbinger), shares the revelation with others and the Reapers all wake up from slumber eager to harvest us and make babies.

Proving yet again that all life revolves around sex and finding a mate, even the artifical type.

Side note: The Geth are obviously at the same point as the original Reapers, since even the Reaper attempt failed
on them too and they created Legion, who is essentially a proto-Reaper (independant community, disconnected from the whole).

Some support for the theory:
http://social.biowar...08966/3#1547516

Modifié par Mallissin, 04 mars 2010 - 01:58 .

[adam_grif]

I like the idea that they were created by crazy Canadians as part of some kind of elaborate scheme to trade game discs for money.

[Mallissin]

Touche, Adam. Touche!

[SandTrout]

Click here please.

[Rip504]

*Baby Juice*

[Reptilian Rob]

This is the best Reaper theory I have come across. Nicely done, it was a great read.

[Elyvern]

Great Read. I can't really buy your specifics about WHY the reapers want humanity, but there are two things I believe in.



1. It would be so easy to go the dumb way and say the reapers are evil beings that want to wipe out the galaxy. I sincerely doubt this is so, so there has to be a logical reason for what they do, even though we don't know what it is yet.



2. A good number of topics that's dropped in both games that suggest the human gene pool is nothing like the rest of the alien races and that humanity as a race is an upstart in many ways that disconcert and confuse the rest of the galaxy, genetically, behaviour-wise, etc. All this sounds like prime candidate for reaper interest in human beings, with Shepard at the top of that list, of course.

[Abel Habel]

Very interesting read this. I have been looking for this type of thread. For there are obviously many questions unanswered and speculation at this point is very intriguing, I find.



I am not sure I followed all steps, but I think I undertand that you mean that it is all built on the premise that Sex, or reproduction, is the meaning of all life forms and now is the time for a new reproduciton.



I can buy this but I can see another motive behind the reapers existence and actions. It is said at some point by a reaper that They are Order and that humans/organic life forms are Chaotic. I feel this to be true in a real sense and that it could very well be this that makes the reapers want to abuse organic life forms. With this said, it would also be logical to say that the reapers does Not want to obliverate organic life forms, but instead just control them so that when they need some chaotic spark, for whatever reason, they have an organic life form to take from.



I don't know if I just argued for the same thing but it feels like there is absolutely more to the whole story than we jhave been shown so far.

[Myrmedus]

Let's pull a Halo on it. The forerunners built the Reapers and HUMANZ ARE THE FORERUNNERS OMFG!

No but seriously, I think they mainly want Humans simply because they're such a good prospect for insertion into their race. As to their motivations, I've had MANY thoughts on this and I personally think their goals are higher up than what they're given credit for.

Intelligent organic species ARE almost like a blight on the galaxy, they're unchecked and they're no longer harmonious with their ecosystems or the systems of the Universe even. It's plausible that eventually we'll become so advanced that we screw something up in the Universe big time - like on a structural level (destroying a solar system in a particular galaxy being like destroying a pivotal pillar in a building etc.)

I believe the Reapers waged a war with an incredibly advanced race of organics millions of years ago (see: Derelict Reaper) where the organic race threatened the integrity of the Universe itself. I believe they see organics as a threat to themselves and to the entire Universe once they reach a certain level of advancement (in futurist articles and discussion this point is called the "Technological Singularity" - check it on Google!) so they snuff us out before we reach, integrate viable organic populations into their own race as a way of them living on and then continue the cyclic process.

They're Dark Guardians of the Universe!

Modifié par Myrmedus, 07 août 2010 - 03:31 .

[Mallissin]

I certainly hope it's not going to be a plot twist like that, Myrmedus. Orson Scott Card used that trick in Advent Rising.



As far as why the Reapers have cycles, I'm betting the use of Mass Effect fields causes damage to stars, sort of like the little-known Star Trek story about warp drives destroying time-space in that one region. The Dark Matter/Energy cameo in ME2 is probably a clue into this. So, perhaps the Reapers have to wipe out the races using the Relay so that the stars can recover from the trauma of them being used.



If they didn't cull at regular intervals and Mass Effect fields run rampant, then the Reapers would lose viable solar systems for new species to evolve.

[SandTrout]

I've always seen the Reapers as one of the first races to achieve FTL travel via Eezo. Their technology advanced and they created the Mass Relays and such. In order to forge consensus between wildly varying populations of their own species, they developed a plug-in network that allowed their organic species to form a singular mind, similar to what the Geth have already achieved.

Eventually, it would have been decided that a single construct, rather than widely spaced networks connected via their version of the extranet, would be the most effective way to preserve their culture and identity as a unified species. The resulting construct was the first 'Reaper'. As billions of minds worked in unison, they began to perceive themselves as becoming more than the sum of their parts, and therefor having 'ascended' to a state of near godhood.

As this new immortal entity wandered the galaxy, it noticed other species taking to the stars, and decided to wait and see what these newcomers would do without their intervention. The conclusion, apparently, was negative, and the first Cycle began as the original Reaper chose a portion of the newcomer species to ascend to Reaperdom, and wiping out all other remnants before waiting for the next species to rise to the stars.

[nelly21]

Personally, I think that the Reapers were created to be the pinacle of organic life. Think about it. They harvest different races in order to create a reaper made in the image of that race. But they only harvest these civilizations when they are at the peak.



I believe they were created by a civilization that studied various cultures and realized that all civilizations rise and inevitably fall. The reapers are a way to immortalize these cultures before their collapse. Think of them as living mausoleums.

[Aurora313]

I had been watching Star Trek: The Next Generation with my brother this evening, and a thought just crossed my mind as we were discussing sci-fi stories that we both enjoyed - or rather, he enjoyed, sat me down to watch and thus I developed an interest in.



The thought had occured: What if the Reapers had been in fact built/evolved in a neighbouring galaxy? Possibly M34 (Andromeda) or M51a (Whirlpool galaxy). They were faced with something that threatened their organic existance and were forced to augment themselves to survive and thus over time, steadily they become more dependant on their technology to sustain them. The unique elements of their home galaxy had been depleted so they moved onto another galaxy to harvest more, and then repeated the process again and again, eventunally evolving to the point of becoming the creatures they are. Experimentation then showed that genetic material had similar properties of what they needed and could provide a viable replacement so they journeyed to a suitible galaxy to start the process of seeding life in the galaxy according to their designs.

[Mallissin]

That would kind of change the dynamics of the situation. We're being lead to believe the Reapers were born in the same galaxy as us, so they're like sociopath cousins.



If they're invaders from another Galaxy, or perhaps we only exist because they used the Milky Way as a petri dish, then it would be a whole 'nother ball game.

[Aurora313]

True - it might be a 'whole 'nother ball-game' as you put it. But while I have gotten that impression that the the Reapers may have possibly been created in the Milky Way, a feeling in the back of my mind says that the Reapers may have come from another galaxy, or might be havesting more than just the Milky Way for genetic material. Think about it, they exist in dark space - the empty void between galaxies - whose to say they don't havest other galaxies as well?

[IamSithari]

People the reapers distroy all organic life they only

Reduced them to a controlable level, like a "organic genophage".

If each asari lives a 1000yrs if those not make sense why the reapers wouldnt exterminating them. It would take literally 50 generations to be galactic. The hanar remember the protheans as the ones that gave them civilization. Reptiles live for millions of yrs, thinking talking ones can surely live much longer. And look how close tukuncka(DMZ) is to the citadel no way in hell they reapers missed them. I believe they only wipeout a galactic that is singular, meaning ones that have no diversity. I mean the geth and turians are the two superpowers to mention. Sovereign was a douche bag compared Harbringer. One was more soldier the other more scientist. Sovereigns behavior was irrational if you ask me, he got mad on virmire when shepard told it to go screw itself bring it on reaper. Harbringer on the other hand seem to take the insults and return its own, meaning its tactful not brutish too bad the collectors are so dumb.

[Franky Figgs]

Necro'd. sorry. I said I would post.
I like the idea that the reapers are from another galaxy or galaxies. I'd say they'd have limited desire to live without a new horizon and at there level it would be the expanding universe.