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[Near9000]

There's already a lot of speculation about the Reapers, but here's something I considered about them. Sovereign's hologram in Mass Effect 1 explained a lot of things while at the same time leaving a lot of questions open. One of the things Sovereign said was "We have no beginning. We have no end." 

Now, unless Mass Effect is going to become super-weird with time and stuff in the third game, then the Reapers definitely had a beginning and will have an end. My idea is this: the Reapers have an animalistic mentality on the issue of self-awareness: they cannot conceive of a time before or after theit exstence, unable to imagine a time without them.

Wild animals are this way: a bird escaping a hungry cat will flee not because "that cat could kil me," but "that cat will injure me." The bird can't concieve of a world without its existence and would certainly never wonder "what was the world like before I hatched?" or "how will my death alter the world?" the bird can only imagine it being alive and present.

Perhaps the Reapers are the same way, and even by the design of ther makers. Maybe the Reapers' creators wanted their creations to have the perfect attitude for all-consuming destruction, and having a "we are eternal" mindset was on the agenda. There's no garuantee that the Reapers had conscious makers the way people build machines with conscious design, but it's a possibility. Any opinions on this?

[rabbitchannel]

I thought of it more as a method to invoke fear and awe in other sentient species. The mystery and power surrounding them will have a psychological effect on organic beings. Basically, they don't have "no beginning and no end" and neither do they think that way. They just want you to think that way.

[Near9000]

That's also possible; who better to inspire fear with "we are eternal" than giant squid machines from beyond the galaxy? Sounds scary coming from them!

[Qario]

rab****annel wrote...

I thought of it more as a method to invoke fear and awe in other sentient species. The mystery and power surrounding them will have a psychological effect on organic beings. Basically, they don't have "no beginning and no end" and neither do they think that way. They just want you to think that way.

But the organic species aren't supposed to have knowledge of the reapers. The animal mentality is a simple mentality, although it's an interesting theory, and the reapers certainly think like that of themselves, their mentality is probably more complex. Sovereign says himself that the reapers are "beyond organic comprehension"

[rabbitchannel]

Near9000: Is that sarcasm? Perhaps you shouldn't compare complex sentient machines with cats and birds? I thought this was a genuine discussion thread. What a waste of time.

@Qario: No, but if you promote that belief among your enemies, it is useful. Organics aren't supposed to have knowledge, of course, but once Shepard discovered Sovereign, what was he supposed to do? Shepard would relay this to his/her companions and word would spread. Not to the galaxy, but against the Reapers' direct opposition.

Modifié par rabbitchannel, 05 mars 2010 - 03:34 .

[Near9000]

True that; maybe we'll never fully understand the Reapers. That may wind up as a theme of the game; you can't know everything, and have to accept living in a world where there are things beyond your comprehension and power, and must find a wayto survive and grow anyway. Just like the secrets of the Universe; we've learned a lot recently but will probably never know everything.

[ImperialOperative]

Near9000 wrote...


Wild animals are this way: a bird escaping a hungry cat will flee not because "that cat could kil me," but "that cat will injure me." The bird can't concieve of a world without its existence and would certainly never wonder "what was the world like before I hatched?" or "how will my death alter the world?" the bird can only imagine it being alive and present.

Perhaps the Reapers are the same way, and even by the design of ther makers. Maybe the Reapers' creators wanted their creations to have the perfect attitude for all-consuming destruction, and having a "we are eternal" mindset was on the agenda. There's no garuantee that the Reapers had conscious makers the way people build machines with conscious design, but it's a possibility. Any opinions on this?

Wow, just wow.

Look bub, Reapers = Cthulhu + Cthulhu Spawn

Eternal entities of unimaginable cosmic terror, beyond the scope of human comprehension.

[Near9000]

Yes, Sovereign and the Reapers are modeled after Cthulhu. But they don't have to be straight rips of the gaint squid source -- they can have their own dimensions too, additions of Bioware's choosing. They'd be kinda flat if it they were just giant machine monsters we can never understand and that's it. Why not have more to them, a new spin?

rab****annel, I'm not comparing Reapers to cats and birds. The similarity is a possible similar mentality, being unable to convieve of a time before or after one's own existence. That's the core idea.

Modifié par Near9000, 05 mars 2010 - 03:49 .

[Ewart_K]

Near, I like it



See, I've never been a fan of the whole "they said that to throw you off" argument. It's a cop-out, to pull that and I'd lose a LOT of respect for BioWare if they wrote off everything Sovereign said with some stupid "it's all a lie" twist. BioWare writers are fantastic storytellers - if they made some allusion in ME1 to eternal, then they'd better follow through with something meaningful

[Balerion84]

rab****annel wrote...

Near9000: Is that sarcasm? Perhaps you shouldn't compare complex sentient machines with cats and birds? I thought this was a genuine discussion thread. What a waste of time.

Exactly! I mean c'mon! Are you seriously comparing Reapers to birds and cats? 
Everyone knows that Reapers have more in common with a toaster than birds or cats. I mean, they are both machines at least!

[withateethuh]

Well their timeline of existence is far longer than any human mind could comprehend. They're probably so far into their cycle that they accept it as a fact because they have yet to fail.

[Lightice_av]

I'm quite sure that the Reapers understand time as well as humans do, if not better; their plans hinge on timing, after all. "We have no beginning, no end" is a collective statement, it refers to the Reapers as a whole. It's an expression of arrogance more than anything else. Considering that they have existed for millions of years, but only have limited storage capacity, it's possible that they have forgotten when they were originally born, or how.



Though I have toyed with the idea that they exist in a stable time-loop, and were actually never born (as a collective), and will never die, just return to the beginning once more, for ever.

[Near9000]

withateethuh and Lightice have good points. The Reapers are millions of years old as we all know, and they would probably have their view on time and existence infuenced by that. They sure would feel eternal if they kept wiping out fragile life in the galaxy that crops up over and over. They'd get an attitude about it.



Balerion84, read my initial post more carefully this time. I am not saying that Reapers are like cats and birds! The only similiarity there is that birds and other animals have no concept of before or after their own existence, and the Reapers may not be able to concieve of a post or pre-Reaper time either. It's the whole "I can't imagine a time before me so there must not be one" kind of thinking. That's the correlation I was making.