Bioware General (Mass Effect/Dragon Age/Other)

[magnuskn]

Which in of itself is a bullshitty storytelling device. Across 50000 cycles this was the first one we got someone of Shepards talent and force of personality?

First of all was it 50000 cycles or 50000 years?
I always thought of it more as "In 50000 (cycles/years) there weren't so many that listened to their "prophet" character/archetpye enough."
Like, some did, but not enough, or not in enough time to make a difference.

And TBH in ours we only just squeak through, so we might have been the highest point on an already climbing trend. I mean the Prrotheans did okay in terms of amassing power, their only flaw was a lack of diversified power.

Yeah, should have been "at least 20000 cycles". Still, the numbers are still high enough that it makes it unfeasable that Shepard was the first super duper hero to appear in one billion years.

Again, the whole thing falls apart as soon as you start with any sort of scrutiny. Let's assume that Harbinger successfully reaped the Leviathans and follower races and now we start the whole 50.000 years cycle. He has one big Reaper (himself) and maybe three or four small ones. How exactly did those few things manage to reap the second, third, fourth, fifth and so on cycle? I mean, he got the advantage of subverting the mind control of his creators to take care of them. But the numbers game doesn't work at all for the following ten to hundred cycles.

That's an assumption. You don't know that Reapers create new ones in each cycle. Remember, where are talking about alternate ways you could have developed the Reapers to weaken them. For all you know the Reapers haven't built new ones in many, many cycles. Only replacing the odd one that gets destroyed, assuming Sovereign wasn't the first. (derelict Reaper isn't canon until ME2). As well you are pointing out the database and how Bioware wrote the Reapers to be too strong and entirely missing my point. DON'T WRITE IT THAT WAY. That's what I'm saying. Instead you write your canon to be that Thanix Cannons or some new weapon enable one Dreadnought to match the Reaper equivalent 1 for 1. You're still probably outnumbered, but you've got something to work with now. You write other story events or constraints on the Reapers that reduce their numbers. Does that make sense?

Oh, come ON, man. This is not a new discussion. This has been discussed to death over and over on the BioWare forums and at least twice in the hundred+ pages of this thread. I was on your side at first, until people here on this forum pointed out the harsh realities of the numbers to me. Yes, the Reapers build one new big Reaper ship each cycle and a few small ones as well. That's canon.

And I get what you are saying, "that's how you would have written it". But it wasn't. It was written by the BW writers, who wrote themselves into a corner which made it impossible for them to get themselves to any sort of story conclusion without a magic McGuffin. A solution I myself forcefully disagree with.

[TTTX]

And I get what you are saying, "that's how you would have written it". But it wasn't. It was written by the BW writers, who wrote themselves into a corner which made it impossible for them to get themselves to any sort of story conclusion without a magic McGuffin. A solution I myself forcefully disagree with.

They only because they decide not to give the Reapers any weaknesses at all or say the Reapers got weaken by their long travel from Dark Space, even the smaller didn't get affected at all despite being machines that still resources to function, after all the Reapers "Sleep" for long periods of time to save power while the next cycle starts up.

BW have ignored lore, major or minor plot points made out just to change gameplay, story etc, just to make the story they want to tell or the game they want to make.

[magnuskn]

Yep, pretty much. It's spelled out quite explicitly by the little "doorway chats" those two female soldiers on the Normandy have in ME3. The Reapers don't need supplies, they function like a Perpetuum Mobile. That's pretty lazy writing right there. :-/

[TTTX]

Yep, pretty much. It's spelled out quite explicitly by the little "doorway chats" those two female soldiers on the Normandy have in ME3. The Reapers don't need supplies, they function like a Perpetuum Mobile. That's pretty lazy writing right there. :-/

which almost funny considering that Vigil states that Reaper forces strip the planets bare of resources which is odd if they don't need them.

But again the writers didn't plan ahead and just made a lot of stuff on the fly when they made a new ME game.

The Terminus systems according to the codex is suppose to be run by minor races, but in ME2 we see lots of turians, salarians, asari and humans running thing, hell one of the major players in the systems are Aria an asari.

The only minor races we ever get to see running thing are like a few Krogan, with a vortha following them and a few Batarians.

Just as an example.

[Mazder]

Yeah, should have been "at least 20000 cycles". Still, the numbers are still high enough that it makes it unfeasable that Shepard was the first super duper hero to appear in one billion years.

Again, the whole thing falls apart as soon as you start with any sort of scrutiny. Let's assume that Harbinger successfully reaped the Leviathans and follower races and now we start the whole 50.000 years cycle. He has one big Reaper (himself) and maybe three or four small ones. How exactly did those few things manage to reap the second, third, fourth, fifth and so on cycle? I mean, he got the advantage of subverting the mind control of his creators to take care of them. But the numbers game doesn't work at all for the following ten to hundred cycles.

I am guessing the parameters change over time.
The Starchild, as much as it's hated, does change it parameters based on what the Leviathans programmed into it. So if Harbinger is the result of the Leviathans being uplifted does the AI still listen to said uplifted Leviathans. Is Harbinger in control or not?
If yes then Harbinger could easily have changed the parameters of when the cycle happens.
If no then I am assuming that the first few cycles clearly didn't amass enough power to be a challenge or were way too fragmented to be of any substantial threat. I mean there would definitely be less of a "those that came before" vibe for them as there wold not be any precursor races to leave behind stories or relics as they'd all just be Harbinger, and the first few reapers. If they're already around to be seen the cycles already begun so it's not difficult to assume that the first few cycles would be easy enough to set up a power base.

The main problem is we'd have no assumptions and any deep historical dive doesn't really matter as it all amounts to "they eventually lost" or to parrot/paraphrase Android 16 in DBZA "And then They died too".
I mean assume they make, say, one reaper per cycle and one reaper, as we've seen with Sovereign, is strong enough to tank at least ME1's level of 1 human fleet's worth of power for a while. This is without the whole subversion/indoctrination thing playing into things.
Say Harbinger is worth 2 Sovereigns by way of being the first Reaper. That means he alone can probably tank all of humanity's ME1 level of fleets on his own. Assuming it takes 2 weakened cycles after his own to amass 2 followers that means he now has probably the ability to tank ME1's Asari level fleet. This is during the first 10 cycles when things are still mostly kinda weak, just on assumptions sake. I can see how the Reapers expanded their fleet out over time.
That's also not counting how many of the smaller variants of Reapers were made from the minor races in those cycles.
TBH I imagine in the first 2 cycles it was mostly those smaller Reapers being made. Maybe 2-3 a cycle depending on the weakness of the Galaxy at the time, or how fragmented it was.
That's also if the previous races were not turned to slave races like the Collectors.
The Collectors might just be "our version" of fodder soldiers used for the next cycle like they might have before. Javik never mentions any but TBH we also never ask specifics.
I mean for all we know one of the many races accepted into the Prothean Empire might have been their corrupting catalyst.

[Joblom]

And I get what you are saying, "that's how you would have written it".

Then what are you arguing with me about? You know then that I'm not talking about the canon as it was written. ME2 and ME3 have no excuse for bungling the trilogy the way they did.

[Raga]

Didn't it get stated at some point that the cycles were actually sped up by the Reapers because it was more efficient? And that that's the reason they peppered the galaxy with relays and so on? So the original cycles probably weren't 50,000 year intervals. They still doesn't reduce the problem of the them having enough numbers to "darken the skies of every world," but it might at least explain why they were able to reap early cycles. If there is a lot more variability in the original interval of cycles it would open the possibility of them taking their time via long game strategizing.

It's also possible that not every harvested species was harvested at the point where they attained a galaxy-wide civilization. Without relays, interstellar travel is astronomically harder, and thus a relatively localized species might develop sufficient technology to produce AI long before they figure out how to colonize distant stars. There's not really anything inherent in say geth neural nets that's dependent on an understanding of eezo. At least not in any place that I can recall in the lore. And such a species would be pretty defenseless against even one Reaper.

Since the Moon is a Harsh Mistress came up in the other thread and it's part of the plot of that book: Think how utterly defenseless we would be right now against an attack as low tech as somebody dropping rocks on us from the general vicinity of the moon, let alone a Reaper. Because we've made 0 effort to defend ourselves from those kinds of attacks.

[Raga]

Since we are speculating about ways to render the Reapers defeatable while maintaining their initial threat level in ME1 without a MacGuffin, I"ll just repost this thing I said a while ago:

"One idea off the top of my head: Decoupling of intelligence from self-awareness, which would be an interesting and subversive theme to explore with AI anyway. Basically, instead of "immortal, God AI" which has been done 400 billion times, make the Reapers an automated process created by the Leviathans for basically "transhumanism," immortality purposes. They allow the process self-modification to iron out inefficiencies and improve functionality but not so much that it acquires self-awareness because they assume their consciousness will remain to make those high level decisions. However, dumb robot is dumb, and calculates that said organic consciousness is inefficient and impairs optimized functionality and scrubs it out despite Leviathans attempt to resist and proceeds on autopilot, using other sapient organic life to continue with its prime immortality programming. So the Reapers basically become a kind of unintelligent but insanely powerful Borg. As they are essentially dumb and were never intended for non-Leviathan targets, they are fundamentally incapable of self-replication even as they are programmed to "harvest" organic targets for these purposes. Because of this, cycle after cycle, their numbers become less and less as sapient species fight back and destroy some and they become more and more decrepit until the sweet spot tipping point is reached in our cycle. They look and sound and act like god-bots because that is in fact what they Leviathans intended them to become, but they are really non sapient death machines running a Leviathan Alexa/Siri natural language interface that just does a bang-up job of mimicry."

Once that's established, there's any number of ways you could exploit the weakness of their rigidity or fight back.

This would also require the Reapers numbers to have come from the Leviathans though and not have been steadily built up over eons.

[TTTX]

Didn't it get stated at some point that the cycles were actually sped up by the Reapers because it was more efficient? And that that's the reason they peppered the galaxy with relays and so on? So the original cycles probably weren't 50,000 year intervals. They still doesn't reduce the problem of the them having enough numbers to "darken the skies of every world," but it might at least explain why they were able to reap early cycles. If there is a lot more variability in the original interval of cycles it would open the possibility of them taking their time via long game strategizing.

It's also possible that not every harvested species was harvested at the point where they attained a galaxy-wide civilization. Without relays, interstellar travel is astronomically harder, and thus a relatively localized species might develop sufficient technology to produce AI long before they figure out how to colonize distant stars. There's not really anything inherent in say geth neural nets that's dependent on an understanding of eezo. At least not in any place that I can recall in the lore. And such a species would be pretty defenseless against even one Reaper.

Since the Moon is a Harsh Mistress came up in the other thread and it's part of the plot of that book: Think how utterly defenseless we would be right now against an attack as low tech as somebody dropping rocks on us from the general vicinity of the moon, let alone a Reaper. Because we've made 0 effort to defend ourselves from those kinds of attacks.

it was either Vigil or Sovereign that said that the Reapers set up the Citadel and relays to make organic life evolve on the paths the Reapers let out, which could mean it either took to long for new organics to rise up and take over or we are going with was hinted at in ME1 the Reaper power source aren't infinit and they need to use organics to harvest fuel and materials from time to time in order to function.

This would also require the Reapers numbers to have come from the Leviathans though and not have been steadily built up over eons.

Eh, depends we don't know how many losses the Reapers have suffered over the cycles (while Sovereign did say they had the numbers to darken the sky of every world, I don't think he meant their numbers was so high they could darken the sky on every world at once or he could have meant that they can darken the sky by going in front of the sun like the moon does on our world). Even in ME3 it took them a long while before they manged to be in every system and I feel like that was more gameplay sake as Liara states it would still take 100 years before they harvested the small part of the galaxy.

[TTTX]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_TzQyWr0Wk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQGsjfBY7iE

[TTTX]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHnJJdzq7Kc&t=7s

[magnuskn]

I am guessing the parameters change over time.
The Starchild, as much as it's hated, does change it parameters based on what the Leviathans programmed into it. So if Harbinger is the result of the Leviathans being uplifted does the AI still listen to said uplifted Leviathans. Is Harbinger in control or not?
If yes then Harbinger could easily have changed the parameters of when the cycle happens.
If no then I am assuming that the first few cycles clearly didn't amass enough power to be a challenge or were way too fragmented to be of any substantial threat. I mean there would definitely be less of a "those that came before" vibe for them as there wold not be any precursor races to leave behind stories or relics as they'd all just be Harbinger, and the first few reapers. If they're already around to be seen the cycles already begun so it's not difficult to assume that the first few cycles would be easy enough to set up a power base.

The main problem is we'd have no assumptions and any deep historical dive doesn't really matter as it all amounts to "they eventually lost" or to parrot/paraphrase Android 16 in DBZA "And then They died too".
I mean assume they make, say, one reaper per cycle and one reaper, as we've seen with Sovereign, is strong enough to tank at least ME1's level of 1 human fleet's worth of power for a while. This is without the whole subversion/indoctrination thing playing into things.
Say Harbinger is worth 2 Sovereigns by way of being the first Reaper. That means he alone can probably tank all of humanity's ME1 level of fleets on his own. Assuming it takes 2 weakened cycles after his own to amass 2 followers that means he now has probably the ability to tank ME1's Asari level fleet. This is during the first 10 cycles when things are still mostly kinda weak, just on assumptions sake. I can see how the Reapers expanded their fleet out over time.
That's also not counting how many of the smaller variants of Reapers were made from the minor races in those cycles.
TBH I imagine in the first 2 cycles it was mostly those smaller Reapers being made. Maybe 2-3 a cycle depending on the weakness of the Galaxy at the time, or how fragmented it was.
That's also if the previous races were not turned to slave races like the Collectors.
The Collectors might just be "our version" of fodder soldiers used for the next cycle like they might have before. Javik never mentions any but TBH we also never ask specifics.
I mean for all we know one of the many races accepted into the Prothean Empire might have been their corrupting catalyst.

See, you can assume all kinds of stuff, but that makes that fan-fiction not actual lore which we were told in the game. According to the game, the Reapers reaped from the start every 50k years and were always successful. Only that for them to be successful at the start, the numbers don't work out. Yeah, Harbinger may be strong as hell, but he's still up against a whole galaxy of beings, alone. Doesn't work.

And I get what you are saying, "that's how you would have written it".

Then what are you arguing with me about? You know then that I'm not talking about the canon as it was written. ME2 and ME3 have no excuse for bungling the trilogy the way they did.

I could ask the same pointed question. We probably started talking past each other somewhere in our conversation.

[Mazder]

See, you can assume all kinds of stuff, but that makes that fan-fiction not actual lore which we were told in the game. According to the game, the Reapers reaped from the start every 50k years and were always successful. Only that for them to be successful at the start, the numbers don't work out. Yeah, Harbinger may be strong as hell, but he's still up against a whole galaxy of beings, alone. Doesn't work.

Except you're assuming every cycle is exactly the same either by power or population size.
There could very well be a race of beings who make AI on their own and never encounter the rest of the Galaxy. Hell, the Quarians did it in ours all on their own in our time of 1895!
So if the Reapers had turned up then the Galaxy as we know it would be much weaker without humanity's help and would have had much less of a population to harvest as they leave lesser races alone. We'd have been a lesser race at that time.

Just because they reaped every 50k years doesn't mean they reaped everything every 50k years.

And the numbers can easily work out. Just because we don't have a literal timeline of events of when they harvested every Reaper doesn't mean it wasn't possible to do.
Cycle 0, let's assume it was just Harbinger, okay, he's the most powerful Reaper, would have to go it alone so he's not going to be pissing off to Dark Space, he's going to hang around for a while, most likely choosing a planet to live on that supports life. Are you telling me that if he lands on a planet, even with an earth-like civilization growth, that he can not indoctrinate enough people to harvest and build a small reaper?
Like one Destroyer Class Reaper out of 1 planet?
Say he lands on a planet relative to where we were in say, year 1. As in 1 AD. Roman Era, Julius Caesar is elected consul, Jesus is born. That level of tech. Easily into the "not harvested" territory. in just 2000 years of our own growth we'd be ready to be wiped out by the Reapers and we'd have the population size to feed another harvest for a single Reaper. 2000 years is enough time for Harbinger to be discovered at the same rate of growth (unless he buried himself in an ocean in which case it might take a little longer but still within the 50k years timeframe). Exponentially draw out our growth alongside a Reaper and it's pretty clear that there is easily going to be some indoctrination going on and it's easily enough time for Harbinger to make at least a Destroyer sized Reaper.
On one planet.
Then those two are free to move on and either start a new cycle or continue to make this harvest if they so wish. I'd think it more likely they split up and do the same again, so in 2 cycles you could have up to 4 Reapers. Once they have 4 they can easily start directing races along to their technology with the first few Mass Relays.

It's not hard to assume they could have easily made the cycles and their fleet a thing. Just because it's literally not stated doesn't mean the capabilities are not explained. Just because the capabilities and method isn't laid out does not mean they lacked the capability to do it.

[TTTX]

Except you're assuming every cycle is exactly the same either by power or population size.

which we know they aren't, the Prothean empire was a lot bigger and more advanced then the current cycle.

[Raga]

We also haven't heard from any source that would know for certain that every cycle lasted exactly 50,000 years.

[Joblom]

We also haven't heard from any source that would know for certain that every cycle lasted exactly 50,000 years.

Logically it would most likely vary a bit. Might return a fair bit sooner sometimes, might return quite some time later. There are so many factors at play.

[TTTX]

We also haven't heard from any source that would know for certain that every cycle lasted exactly 50,000 years.

If I remember correctly if you do the side quest scanning the Keepers in ME1 and continue to let them do that, you should get an email about the findings in ME2 and it basically suggest they are suppose to get a signal every 50.000 years or so.

Even so we know that Sovereign plan to retake the Citadel had been in the works for some time, originally it was hinted at he was behind the Rachni wars until it was reconned in ME3's DLC. So the harvesting of the current cycle was delayed for some time, possible before humans were even that space adventuring and according to Vigil theorizes that the Reaper left behind is the one who decides when the harvesting starts by "measuring" how advance the cycle is.

[SciFlyBoy]

That too. I'm wondering how a game where every conversation has a "fuck up" path would work out. As in, it's possible to fundamentally screw up any conversation in some manner.

I would hate that game. Too much like real life. I've grown too attached to the fantasy of the 'Shepard' choice.

[Raga]

We also haven't heard from any source that would know for certain that every cycle lasted exactly 50,000 years.

If I remember correctly if you do the side quest scanning the Keepers in ME1 and continue to let them do that, you should get an email about the findings in ME2 and it basically suggest they are suppose to get a signal every 50.000 years or so.

Sure, but that's by necessity post the creation of the Citadel and the relays. After all, the keepers can't very well open the Citadel to dark space if there is no Citadel yet to open to dark space. And we know that at least one cycle was "reaped" before the creation of the Citadel (the Leviathans). We have no point of reference for how long that took or how long it took for whatever number of cycles were between that and the creation of the Citadel.

[TTTX]

Sure, but that's by necessity post the creation of the Citadel and the relays. After all, the keepers can't very well open the Citadel to dark space if there is no Citadel yet to open to dark space. And we know that at least one cycle was "reaped" before the creation of the Citadel (the Leviathans). We have no point of reference for how long that took or how long it took for whatever number of cycles were between that and the creation of the Citadel.

We have no idea of the first cycle was like in terms of close to anything other then the Leavithans ruled and AI's killed things from time to time (without reason given, probably because the writers never thought of one or they just didn't care since they just made it up to make their ending more valid).

We have to remember the game and especially the ending (since it had to be change because of the leak script that happen months before the game was suppose to come out) was slap together fast and in a hurry because EA wanted to capitalize of the previous games (ME2 and DA:O) succes which is the reason why DA2 and ME3 were unpolished and unfinished during launch in some areas.

The Reality is the writers didn't think of it and the best we can do is speculate and theorize with lore that can be changed on a whim by BW assuming they ever get another sequel out (which they probably won't, depends on how well anthem does).

[magnuskn]

Yeah, what TTTX said. The first cycles probably *were* different, but it still makes very little sense that one big ship can reap an entire galaxy.

[Mazder]

Yeah, what TTTX said. The first cycles probably *were* different, but it still makes very little sense that one big ship can reap an entire galaxy.

This, this point is what you're failing to see.
Everyone is saying "maybe it's not the whole Galaxy or a Galaxy's worth of people every time", hence calling them "different" in the first place.
Harbinger not having to snork up an entire Galaxy is one of said differences that make is plausible.

[FrozenShadow]

You know guys, you're seemingly forgetting one important ability Reapers have: Indoctrination.

Reapers don't actually need to have overwhelming number of these "Reaper capital ships" (like Harbinger and Sovereign) as they indoctrinate some parts of some races in every cycle and then uses them as agents. Some of these indoctrinated people are probably used to directly in fighting, while others are subterfuge purpose; spreading confusion, misinformation and other shadowy actions, which makes it difficult for the people in the cycles to fight against them.

Another thing no one had mentioned is Reapers "re-modelling" races. They basically build the main bulk of their forces after they have attacked. Because of this, even smallish number of Reaper ships could easily defeat planet or two and after that Reapers have multiplied their forces.

As matter of fact, this seems to be part of greater military tactics for Reapers. What they seemed to do in past cycles was.....

1. Wait until cycle is "ripe" for taking.
2. Start spreading indoctrination and finding races or "agents" to be used (Rachni originally, then Geth/Saren in ME1).
3. Capture Citadel, let other Reapers arrive, while Isolating the rest of the galaxy by preventing Relay use from others.
4. Use indoctrinated agents to spread further confusion.
5. Advance to different planets one by one, starting from most advanced and dangerous races in the cycle (Humanity and Turians were hit HARD and Thessia was eventually attacked too. But Salarian weren't really attack in masses and Reapers only send one frigging ship to fight Krogans).
6. Once capital planet of various races are captured, Reapers start "remodel" them to build their ground troopers. (Originally they probably mostly used that dragon's teeth to modify different races to husks). This way Reapers basically build new army every cycle.
7. Use capital ships to move around, while carrying these "re-modelled" races to be used as army.
8. Advance to new planets and build more and more army.
9. Because time won't matter, Reapers could move slowly planet by planet and remodel their populations to their own disposable "shock troopers".
10. After few years of this, Reapers don't even need to use their ships really, as they could use overwhelming numbers of ground forces to simply run over any defense on any of the planets in the cycles (Javik experience was example of this.)
11. Once all advanced races are destroyed, all evidence of their existence removed and few more Reapers to build, Reapers go to Dark Space waiting for next cycle.

Now Prothean cycle was a little different in that seemingly in no other cycles had one race dominated as effectively as Protheans did. This made it more difficult for Reapers to destroy them, which allowed Protheans to "sneak" some things past this original plan of destruction. One of these "sneak ins" eventually caused the downfall of Reapers, when they couldn't use Citadel as they normally did, when they started the harvest.

[Joblom]

You know guys, you're seemingly forgetting one important ability Reapers have: Indoctrination.

As I envision the war primarily being an interstellar one between fleets I am not-so concerned with indoctrination. It's a secondary threat. A Reaper needs to be physically close to somebody to employ it and if they are close to a person the battle is already over. Sleeper agents can be dealt with by employ harsh but necessary wartime measures.

If the Reapers are in a position to harvest a world then again, the battle is already over. Which does bring for the the prospect that it may be necessary to employ a "scorched earth" policy. That would be one of those harsh wartime measures. Kill the survivors and refugees too. No sleeper agents that way.

[Mazder]

You know guys, you're seemingly forgetting one important ability Reapers have: Indoctrination.

I didn't...if ya read my posts you'd see I included it in one scenario.

[FrozenShadow]

You know guys, you're seemingly forgetting one important ability Reapers have: Indoctrination.

As I envision the war primarily being an interstellar one between fleets I am not-so concerned with indoctrination. It's a secondary threat. A Reaper needs to be physically close to somebody to employ it and if they are close to a person the battle is already over. Sleeper agents can be dealt with by employ harsh but necessary wartime measures.

If the Reapers are in a position to harvest a world then again, the battle is already over. Which does bring for the the prospect that it may be necessary to employ a "scorched earth" policy. That would be one of those harsh wartime measures. Kill the survivors and refugees too. No sleeper agents that way.

That's another problematic part. Because I don't see there being fleet battles at all in past cycles. Naturally there had been fights on space, but it has probably always been one sided quick fight between confused and cut-off small force between dozen or so Reaper ship. As for Indoctrination being secondary threat, I got to disagree with you. Indoctrination is basically a reason, why every harvesting cycle even begun. It was always Sovereign starting the cycle by indoctrinating and acquiring an army to capture Citadel. There were also various smaller plots like the Hanar trying to sabotage Hanar's homeworld of Kahje's automated defenses. Because of this, it's rather safe to assume there would be other agents doing similar heinous action in secret.

You're also ignoring another part with these indoc sleeper agents. Because of Reapers basically isolating the galaxy in every cycle by capturing Citadel first thing, races in h cycles could barely communicate. No one knows really who they're fighting with and what's going on.This creates perfect opportunity for these sleeper agents to work in secret. There is of course the part that you can never be certain, who is indoctrinated or who isn't. It's not like there had ever been equivalent for dogs in terminator universe, who could spot infiltrating terminators. Yes, from Javik we did learn that Protheans had eventually learned of the horror of indoctrination, but that was seemingly after decades of fighting already.

Even then you're forgetting the psychological side here. Once you're seriously threatened by outside force, people tend to lean on each others. This means no one will simply kill survivors and refugees, because they will feel sympathy towards their blight and helping survivor gives helpers a feeling of doing something that matters. You simply could not execute refugees on the spot without serious impact on your own people. And even if you did employ tactic like this, then these Reaper indoc agents had still done their job by causing people to see enemy even in innocent people.

And even if you would do that, it could all be for nothing. After all indoctrination doesn't only need physical proximity to Reaper. All three games had multiple examples of people getting indoctrinated through various Reaper devices. Yes, it was lot slower indoctrination, but also much more devious one. This tactic could eventually turn anyone on Reapers side and without any potential prior warning. So, basically there could be agents already inside your forces or someone already inside could later become agent for Reapers. Most likely this would happen via people in various cycles trying to study their enemy and their technology (studying your enemy is basic tactic in any fighting) by going through their technology and then potentially get burned by through that very study by getting indoctrinated.

[FrozenShadow]

You know guys, you're seemingly forgetting one important ability Reapers have: Indoctrination.

I didn't...if ya read my posts you'd see I included it in one scenario.

I was talking more in general term. Though I did also miss your post about it. That's what you get, when you read and post late in the night.

[magnuskn]

Yeah, what TTTX said. The first cycles probably *were* different, but it still makes very little sense that one big ship can reap an entire galaxy.

This, this point is what you're failing to see.
Everyone is saying "maybe it's not the whole Galaxy or a Galaxy's worth of people every time", hence calling them "different" in the first place.
Harbinger not having to snork up an entire Galaxy is one of said differences that make is plausible.

Of course you can fan-fic in any kind of explanation. Maybe magical unicorns helped him the first ten times. It's still vastly implausible. It's only after we go past, I don't know, five hundred cycles that it becomes really "realistic". And after that it becomes ever more impossible for a conventional solution to work. At the point Shepard comes around, it's, again, at least 20.000 cycles and as much large Reapers. There was no way at that point to get rid of the Reapers without a magic reset button.

[TTTX]

Of course you can fan-fic in any kind of explanation. Maybe magical unicorns helped him the first ten times. It's still vastly implausible. It's only after we go past, I don't know, five hundred cycles that it becomes really "realistic". And after that it becomes ever more impossible for a conventional solution to work. At the point Shepard comes around, it's, again, at least 20.000 cycles and as much large Reapers. There was no way at that point to get rid of the Reapers without a magic reset button.

Depends before ME2 and ME3, the Reapers were suppose to be trapped in dark space, than ME2 came and retconned that plot point, mostly thanks to ME2 main plot not doing anything other then have the Colletors build a Reaper and I have no idea what the point was with that as the whole Dark Energy plot line got thrown out the window, but that's what the ME sequels do take stuff set ups from previous games and basically ignore them.

But basically the Writers wrote themselves into various corners on multiple occasions with ME2 and later ME3, after ME2 there weren't really true enemies left to serve as the main antagonist, so they were basically forced to bring in the Reapers and they did without any consequences for the Reapers which again makes the entire plot for ME1 rather mute and illogical since it never get adressed why Sovereign had to go with his plan instead of just calling them tell them to go the long way.

After all there are previous facts that get totally ignored in ME3 because the writers had to get out ME3 fast and in a hurry, pretty much like ME:A they used a lot of cliches and executed them for the most part poorly, didn't matter much in the beginning in ME3 because we thought we were going to save the day at the end, but that didn't really happened because writers wanted to be artsy and raise questions (oh boy did they do that).

[FrozenShadow]

Yeah, what TTTX said. The first cycles probably *were* different, but it still makes very little sense that one big ship can reap an entire galaxy.

This, this point is what you're failing to see.
Everyone is saying "maybe it's not the whole Galaxy or a Galaxy's worth of people every time", hence calling them "different" in the first place.
Harbinger not having to snork up an entire Galaxy is one of said differences that make is plausible.

Of course you can fan-fic in any kind of explanation. Maybe magical unicorns helped him the first ten times. It's still vastly implausible. It's only after we go past, I don't know, five hundred cycles that it becomes really "realistic". And after that it becomes ever more impossible for a conventional solution to work. At the point Shepard comes around, it's, again, at least 20.000 cycles and as much large Reapers. There was no way at that point to get rid of the Reapers without a magic reset button.

Well, that's assuming that none of the Reapers had perished over the hundred of cycles. After all, we do know thanks to ME1 that past cycles had been capable of destroying at least one Reaper, so more had probably been destroyed too. It also seems possible that different cycles produce different type of Reapers and not all them might have survived the ravages of time either.

We also can't be certain, if Harbinger didn't use the armies of the very first cycle as the base of the Reaper army, while slowly building the actual Reaper army. Another possibility is that at first cycle, Harbinger ascended literally every race on that cycle and that way having good sized army right from the beginning. Yet another potential theory is that Harbinger didn't start these cycles right away, but after it's creation, it observed the life in the galaxy and witnessed this endless cycle of organic creating AI/synthetics and then that AI/synthetics turned against their creators. It's also logical to think that Harbinger might have used some indoctrinated people to say that they have found a solution to synthetic threat, only for that to lead to construction of new Reaper, before they too turned against the races of that cycle. It was only after Harbinger thought Reapers had enough forces to establish the actual 50,000 years cycle system.

Yes, all of the above is supposition and we can't be sure of what really happened. But I think the above are sensible and reasonable enough explanations for how Reapers could've started it all.

Granted that do leave the overwhelming numbers problem with the Reapers and how to win them. This is definitely something that Bioware royally fucked up. Instead of magical "kill them all" button, they should've wrote the story in a way that the current cycle managed to develop weapons to beat the Reapers. And writers had so many possible options too.

1. The weapon that destroyed that Reaper in ME1 and reformed the surface of a planet. While Cerberus was able to track the derelict Reaper from the information based on this, they could've found the remains of that weapon from the other end or some facility/remains of space ship and got some information from there.
2. Reverse-engineering Reaper technology. Thanix cannon and Normandy advanced shields. Something more like this would've gone long way. Especially if Bioware would've been wise and for example allowed some Reapers to get through that Batarian relay, before Shepard destroyed it, making Reaper threat clear to all.
3. Bioware could've used their disregard Dark Energy plot a different way. For example they could've made it so that people found a way to weaponize it. Bombs that destroyed shields on impact like the sun radiation on Haestrom. Basically a weapon that worked like singularity skill in games, but just large scale. Weapon system that is powered by living biotic beings channeling their energy in the weapon. Hell, using enough Dark Matter to collapse a sun or core of the world and create a supernova. Possibilities are rather endless with this.
4. The most logical way. Instead of bullshit crucible, Prothean archives stored actual weapon designs and basically the whole might of Protheans. This could've also given another use for Shepard as he had that chipher in his/her head. Shepard could've done something simple as translating Prothean alphabeth to human and galactic basic, allowing other people to actually start solving the mysteries of those archives. Or another way would've been those Prothean Data disks and Asari writings side assignment from ME1. Together these missions actually formed a way for normal people to read Prothean, not just some Dark Energy Dissertation bullshit we had in the game. Third way would've naturally been that Ilos had more secrets remaining and Vigil in its last act could've have done something other people could also understand information it left behind.

Alas, none of this happened, because Bioware basically "Last Jedied" the games. Building a trilogy without clear plan. Yet, even these examples I cooked up in half a hour easily provide possible solution of how the galaxy could've fought and in the end beat Reapers in more conventional way.

Then again, maybe all of this is EA fault. When they bought Bioware, it was at worst possible time and it could've ended up being more hazardous to ME than none of us thought before. After all, Bioware didn't really have real plans for trilogy, when they made ME1. It was only it's success that made them start planning it. But BW got bought by EA, company known for policy of releasing games as fast as possible. This forced Bioware's hand and made them choose the most simplest paths as those were possible to do within the short time table they were given. We also can't forget that at the time of ME2, and that way whole trilogy planning, Bioware were just bought by EA. This naturally meant that the leadership of Bioware would bend over backwards to please people at EA and doing things their way. Sadly, this eventually resulted all the fuck ups and way too simple ideas in last two games.

[FrozenShadow]

Depends before ME2 and ME3, the Reapers were suppose to be trapped in dark space,

again makes the entire plot for ME1 rather mute and illogical since it never get adressed why Sovereign had to go with his plan instead of just calling them tell them to go the long way.

Oh, you mention this gave me yet another idea, how writers could've used this to equal the playing field so to speak. Because Reapers couldn't use Citadel Relay and were basically forced to fly out of dark space, that could've caused rather significant percent of Reaper ships to perish during the trip. It's again safe to say that all that hundreds of past cycles had caused lot of Reapers to see battles and take hits. While none of those were enough to destroy these Reapers, those many hits could've been enough to weaken them so much that these ships couldn't survive the long and difficult trip through the dark space. Especially so, if Reaper traveled at much faster limit and pushing themselves to way over any safe to limits to arrive faster. This would be enough to destroy any ships that had weakened in past battles.

Well, I though this part is fairly simple. Because Reapers are ultimately machines, they do work based on the orders/programming they were given. And Sovereign job was to use Citadel to let Reapers through it, so it worked to do just that. I also got the impression that when Sovereign was vanguarding the cycles, it had no way to connect to other Reapers, before Sovereign came into contact with Citadel. Basically, this worked mobile phone that had no signal until the connection to a Citadel. Once that signal was connected, Sovereign basically called the rest of Reapers and stayed "on the phone" that whole time, while transferring information of the current state of the cycle to rest of his kind.

Or at that's how I have thought it.

[TTTX]

I also got the impression that when Sovereign was vanguarding the cycles, it had no way to connect to other Reapers, before Sovereign came into contact with Citadel. Basically, this worked mobile phone that had no signal until the connection to a Citadel. Once that signal was connected, Sovereign basically called the rest of Reapers and stayed "on the phone" that whole time, while transferring information of the current state of the cycle to rest of his kind.

Or at that's how I have thought it.

Here is the problem though, there is the Collectors and they at least have a link to Harbringer to talk to him and let him do his thing.

[Joblom]

That's another problematic part. Because I don't see there being fleet battles at all in past cycles. Naturally there had been fights on space, but it has probably always been one sided quick fight between confused and cut-off small force between dozen or so Reaper ship.

I'm sure the battles were indeed rather quick and one-sided, but ideally ME3 should have made for a situation in which our fleets can put up a fight because of advantages they'd have from the reverse engineering of Sovereign's wreckage, the derelict Reaper, or whatever else. If that isn't the case then it isn't worth it to really worry about anything except perhaps trying to find a way to flee or hide. Presuming we don't have the benefit of some last minute McGuffin turning up when the Reaper's invade, we are pretty much screwed in the official canon of Mass Effect. Which is why I like to speculate about how the sequels could have been done differently. Indeed, Mass Effect 3 sets us up in a hopeless situation. I don't know why the Reapers don't fight with even more fire-power. You'd think given that this cycle has had some problems that the first thing they'd do is just glass the core-worlds. Why care about harvesting anyone? Just lob R-bombs at the biggest settled planets and then hide in remote areas for a little while. The galaxy will fracture and revert to a dark age without the Reapers even needing to fight.

Again, regarding Indoctrination, if I can't physically resist the Reapers then indoctrination doesn't matter. I'm helpless anyway. I can run, but not much else and even that is not likely to save me for long.

You're also ignoring another part with these indoc sleeper agents. Because of Reapers basically isolating the galaxy in every cycle by capturing Citadel first thing, races in h cycles could barely communicate.[/quote]

Yes, but in Mass Effect 3 the Reapers don't seem to have any interest in doing this. I don't know why, but they don't. The only counter to this is to learn how to build our own Mass Relays and/or to tinker with the existing ones so we can isolate them from the Citadel and/or deny the Reapers safe passage through them. Ditto learning to manipulate the Citadel itself. (ME2 should have done this). I would like to point out that if we can't defeat or even slow down the Reapers with our fleets then we can't defend the Citadel. They'll capture it and with it the relay network. No meaningful military resistance will be possible then. The Reapers can march in nearly unopposed and indoctrinate whomever they want. We are helpless.

This means no one will simply kill survivors and refugees, because they will feel sympathy towards their blight and helping survivor gives helpers a feeling of doing something that matters.

You have a sugary-sweet view of humanity. Kind of makes me smile. You go, kid.

I also got the impression that when Sovereign was vanguarding the cycles, it had no way to connect to other Reapers, before Sovereign came into contact with Citadel. Basically, this worked mobile phone that had no signal until the connection to a Citadel. Once that signal was connected, Sovereign basically called the rest of Reapers and stayed "on the phone" that whole time, while transferring information of the current state of the cycle to rest of his kind.

Or at that's how I have thought it.

Here is the problem though, there is the Collectors and they at least have a link to Harbringer to talk to him and let him do his thing.

PLOT-HOLE! Maybe. Probably.

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGe16Zoyrk8

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qy9Npwtwn9s

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1lb4OzwIFE

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGJf3aM_2i8

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ye3aF_eNtUQ

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBmlZBzVu9k

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHXDW35h4Lk

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OK-Ld_boHRI

[Joblom]

So this isn't related to the current discussion but recently I've had arguments elsewhere with people who insist ME1 had better weapons than ME2. Can anyone honestly, truly, believe this? I'm a stuck up ME1 fanboy who thinks it ultimately prefers it to ME2, but give me a break. The weapons and mod system in ME1 were shallow. All the guns felt the same and by the end of the game every gun functioned pretty much the same. Heat generation was completely eliminated by then. I much prefer ME2's smaller weapon selection because each weapon is totally distinct. Each pistol is unique. Each shotgun. Each SMG. Ect.

Sure, you could have achieved this in ME2 with a more refined upgrade system that you, say, made your Avenger fire in three-round bursts with the "vindicator" mod. Or use the viper mod on your Mantis to make it fire weaker, rapid shots. Ect. However that'd be pretty complicated and it is simpler to just hand-design the weapons and have them pre-built for the player to choose between.

[TTTX]

So this isn't related to the current discussion but recently I've had arguments elsewhere with people who insist ME1 had better weapons than ME2. Can anyone honestly, truly, believe this? I'm a stuck up ME1 fanboy who thinks it ultimately prefers it to ME2, but give me a break. The weapons and mod system in ME1 were shallow. All the guns felt the same and by the end of the game every gun functioned pretty much the same. Heat generation was completely eliminated by then. I much prefer ME2's smaller weapon selection because each weapon is totally distinct. Each pistol is unique. Each shotgun. Each SMG. Ect.

Sure, you could have achieved this in ME2 with a more refined upgrade system that you, say, made your Avenger fire in three-round bursts with the "vindicator" mod. Or use the viper mod on your Mantis to make it fire weaker, rapid shots. Ect. However that'd be pretty complicated and it is simpler to just hand-design the weapons and have them pre-built for the player to choose between.

both systems have their ups and downs.

ME1 was the first game in a series and they are generally the ones that does age the best as sequels in general steam line things and add stuff here and there, similar to that what ME2 and ME3 did alien guns what they did etc. which ME1 didn't show or really explained all that much, what it did have was a lot of equipment, even for your squadmates (which got removed for choosing a skin or several which is dumb in some areas especially when some characters didn't where armor, like Miranda, Samara, Jack, Jacob, etc.).

ME2 is also sallow just in a different way, smaller gun selection, but they have lore and stuff to them, you can't really mod them at best you can upgrade the their damage output via upgrades.

[Joblom]

ME2 is also sallow just in a different way, smaller gun selection, but they have lore and stuff to them, you can't really mod them at best you can upgrade the their damage output via upgrades.

No, my point is that each gun functions differently. The Shuriken is a vstly different weapon to use than the Locust. The Plasma Shotgun will be used very differently from the katana. You don't use the viper like you do the Widow. Each requires a different build and play-style to be effective. In ME1 you just turn on Marksman and hold down the trigger. ME2 actually has way more depth to its weapons than ME1 does. All those meaningless stat upgrades in ME1 were just padding. Maybe in the early stages of ME1 there is something interesting to that when you have to worry about heat generation, your accuracy isn't too great after the first shot, and the only damage mods increase heat generation... but that all fades.

[TTTX]

No, my point is that each gun functions differently. The Shuriken is a vstly different weapon to use than the Locust. The Plasma Shotgun will be used very differently from the katana. You don't use the viper like you do the Widow. Each requires a different build and play-style to be effective. In ME1 you just turn on Marksman and hold down the trigger. ME2 actually has way more depth to its weapons than ME1 does. All those meaningless stat upgrades in ME1 were just padding. Maybe in the early stages of ME1 there is something interesting to that when you have to worry about heat generation, your accuracy isn't too great after the first shot, and the only damage mods increase heat generation... but that all fades.

I'm going to be honest, I didn't notice much.

But then again the shooting mechanics of ME2 aren't special for other triple A shooting games at the time, Gears of War (which I played before ME2) was the game close to every third person shooter tried to copy in terms of mechanics back then, even ME2.

[Joblom]

But then again the shooting mechanics of ME2 aren't special for other triple A shooting games at the time, Gears of War (which I played before ME2) was the game close to every third person shooter tried to copy in terms of mechanics back then, even ME2.

Your point being...?

My point is this: ME2 guns different from ME1 guns. I really can't comprehend how you could not notice the difference. How long has it been since you played ME1 or ME2? Compare them. The difference should be obvious and indisputable.

[Someone With Mass]

Even if ME2 didn't have the upgrade slot system ME1 had (which was all heat/damage/recoil management and little else), I'd still take ME2's array of weapons any day of the week simply because of how diverse it is. Not to mention that moving away from the tedious inventory system will always make it superior. The only thing ME1 has over ME2 in that regard is the squad armor management, which isn't that big of an issue, since it was essentially just different skins with stats.

Then BioWare went back to that clusterfuck inventory for some ungodly reason.

[Mazder]

But then again the shooting mechanics of ME2 aren't special for other triple A shooting games at the time, Gears of War (which I played before ME2) was the game close to every third person shooter tried to copy in terms of mechanics back then, even ME2.

Your point being...?

My point is this: ME2 guns different from ME1 guns. I really can't comprehend how you could not notice the difference. How long has it been since you played ME1 or ME2? Compare them. The difference should be obvious and indisputable.

I think he means that he doesn't really see much of a difference between 2 styles of shooting mechanic.

And TBH ME1's shootting was more to do with the engine being used than the style they were intending.

Even if ME2 didn't have the upgrade slot system ME1 had (which was all heat/damage/recoil management and little else), I'd still take ME2's array of weapons any day of the week simply because of how diverse it is. Not to mention that moving away from the tedious inventory system will always make it superior. The only thing ME1 has over ME2 in that regard is the squad armor management, which isn't that big of an issue, since it was essentially just different skins with stats.

Then BioWare went back to that clusterfuck inventory for some ungodly reason.

Yeah, RPG's need to have a real talk about inventory management.
ME1 really kinda suffered, as did Andromeda, with TOO MANY ITEMS and not many that were really all that necessary.

RPG and Role-playing shouldn't really be too synonymous these days as TBH playing a role doesn't mean you need the old mechanic of a large inventory with just a "bag o holding" and everything thrown in there.

[TTTX]

Your point being...?

My point is this: ME2 guns different from ME1 guns. I really can't comprehend how you could not notice the difference. How long has it been since you played ME1 or ME2? Compare them. The difference should be obvious and indisputable.

Not sure, I was very tired when I wrote that, I'm sure I had point somewhere, even if I can't remember it.

Well it's been quiet a few years now, but I still remember the gameplay for the most part for both, ME2 a bit less as it fell in with crowd of other similar games from the time and you could just choose the weapons that does the highest damage and be fine as long as you remember to upgrade the damage they do even on the highest difficulties.
So it didn't feel all that different other then cover system actually worked as it should, other than that well they just made new models, added new sounds when they fire and try and give them more of "shooting" feel, the most annoying thing was the ammo, not from a gameplay perspective, but the lore one as it made no sense and made ME just a little less unik.

Then again ME1 was BW first real shooter RPG and it's of course dated and of course clunky in serval areas, but it was more memorable to me then ME2 was, sure they are different from each other, but ME1 was more "different" and "unik" (probably not the best ways to describe it) it can at least stand on it's own, ME2 shooting mechanics doesn't at least to me.

[Joblom]

I think he means that he doesn't really see much of a difference between 2 styles of shooting mechanic.

And TBH ME1's shootting was more to do with the engine being used than the style they were intending.

Yes and to me that is baffling. It'd be like me saying I didn't notice that ME2 didn't have the vast inventory system of ME1. Or I didn't notice that my chihahua was replaced by a great dane.

RPG and Role-playing shouldn't really be too synonymous these days as TBH playing a role doesn't mean you need the old mechanic of a large inventory with just a "bag o holding" and everything thrown in there.

All roleplaying needs to be is acting out a character. I don't need inventory or stats, necessarily, I just need to able to express that character in a meaningful way. In some games that means stats in combat or stats with skills but in Mass Effect all it really needs to mean is the dialog being varied and having depth, with the characters and game-world recognizing and reflecting how my character speaks and what choices they make and opinions they express.