[Megathread] Mass Effect 3

[zealo]

You know what would be fun?

If there were beings who fulfilled the reapers part in the cycle long before there was a Reaper and the Leviathans defeated them to become the "gods" before eventually restarting the cycle.

WOuld be good with an option in the control ending to continue the cycle.

Shepard the hypocrite.

>Fight galactic war against reaper extinction
>Continue cycles when in control of reapers.

[Deleted]

>implying
Its basic instinct to not die.

[Yarathir]

And who is more suited for conquering multiverses than one who conquered his own universe and made every fighting force his own?
All of creation will kneel before me!

Gravath, take your meds!

Shepard the hypocrite.

>Fight galactic war against reaper extinction
>Continue cycles when in control of reapers.

You've basically just outlined why control is horrible. Next: why synthesis is horrible.


Techzombie paradise.

[Deleted]

A shame that we cant play as Holy Emperor Shepard in MENext, ruling the universe and squashing the "actual" main character that the plebs play because they renounced the power.

[May90]

Does BioWare even have people who knows how this ultra-science works, or are they just glancing at wikipedia for ideas?

Also, maybe they even lived for longer than 1B years.

After all, the corpse was there for 225M and they didnt seem to give a fuck about it despite working to clear all evidence of their existance each cycle.
So either;
A) The reapers have lived for so long that 225M years is equal to "eh, i'll take out the thrash in the morning."
B) The reapers didnt know about it (which is rather illogical.)
C) BioWare fucked up

Well, I justify it by the fact that even dead Reapers can still indoctrinate those who discovered them and study them, so it may be even to Reapers' benefit: no one knows who the Reapers are, no one knows about indoctrination, so Reapers basically get many servants for free that can later be used as their agents to spy over the condition of civilization. The only reason anybody started looking for Leviathans in the first place is that Shepard learnt about the Reapers and warned the Galaxy - even though almost no one believed him, dead Reaper's discovery was too strange a coincidence to not pay any attention to it.

What I don't understand, however, is the whole Crucible thing. At first Reapers tried hard to destroy it, but as soon as Shepard meets the blue boy - he suddenly thinks that Crucible is a good alternative to cycles. So, if he thinks this way, then why did he oppose building the Crucible all previous cycles? Why didn't he let Protheans finish it if he knows how it works and knows that it is a better solution than cycles? Why, after all, didn't Reapers build Crucible themselves using their almost unlimited resources and advanced technology? The boy says something weird about synthesis choice: "We've attempted similar solution in the past, but organics were not ready". Seriously? How are they different now? How are they ready?

[Deleted]

Because BioWare jumped the shark.

[rhorle]

One thing I noticed is that the reapers say that the cycle has repeated more times then we can fathom... but if the universe's age in Mass Effect is as accurate as ours is in real life around 13.8 billion years. I'm pretty sure we can fathom 13.8B/50,000 years per cycle... So two hundred seventy-six thousand cycles?

Nothing says though that every cycle was 50,000 years. They just settled on the about 50,000 year cycle after who knows how long. We know from the Catalyst that they tried multiple solutions to the cycle. From forced synthetic life to everything in between. If we take the cycle to mean "purging after their experiment to create a lasting synthetic organic peace" rather then it meaning "a purge every 50,000 years"

- - - Updated - - -

B) The reapers didnt know about it (which is rather illogical.)

They are not omnipotent. For example the reapers also didn't know how to create a lasting peace between organics and synthetics. Or to stop a hidden prothean base from transporting into the Citadel from a secret Mass rely installed on a station they built and control. Or how to kill all the Leviathans. Or all the protheans. Or Liara's beacons.....

I could go on, but there are lots of things the Reapers don't know, they only wanted everybody to think they were omnipotent.

- - - Updated - - -

The boy says something weird about synthesis choice: "We've attempted similar solution in the past, but organics were not ready". Seriously? How are they different now? How are they ready?

Well the obvious is Shepard, and to a larger extent humanity. All through out mass effect references are made to the genetic diversity and adaptability of humanity. Apparently it is so adaptable that it can be revived from the dead and turned into a organic/synthetic hybrid like nothing else in the galaxy at that time.

[May90]

Well the obvious is Shepard, and to a larger extent humanity. All through out mass effect references are made to the genetic diversity and adaptability of humanity. Apparently it is so adaptable that it can be revived from the dead and turned into a organic/synthetic hybrid like nothing else in the galaxy at that time.

Well, purely from statistics, I find it very odd that only one of countless (at least dozens of thousands) cycles had such a genetically diverse race as humanity. Besides, if humanity was so adaptable, and Shepard shown his capabilities early on, why did they have to wait for him to make it to the Crucible? Why didn't they build Crucible themselves and run the merging process before invading the Galaxy and slaughtering billions? They said their main goal was to preserve organic life, so why did they kill so many people they didn't have to?

[rhorle]

Well, purely from statistics, I find it very odd that only one of countless (at least dozens of thousands) cycles had such a genetically diverse race as humanity. Besides, if humanity was so adaptable, and Shepard shown his capabilities early on, why did they have to wait for him to make it to the Crucible? Why didn't they build Crucible themselves and run the merging process before invading the Galaxy and slaughtering billions? They said their main goal was to preserve organic life, so why did they kill so many people they didn't have to?

Perhaps there is a difference between forced and willing in the out come. Perhaps the subject being sacrificed makes all the difference. As the Leviathans said the crucible has never been completed and its outcome is unknown. The Catalyst didn't know what the crucible would do until it was connected to him and he was made aware of the exact outcome of the device.

[Deleted]

They are not omnipotent. For example the reapers also didn't know how to create a lasting peace between organics and synthetics. Or to stop a hidden prothean base from transporting into the Citadel from a secret Mass rely installed on a station they built and control. Or how to kill all the Leviathans. Or all the protheans. Or Liara's beacons.....

Surely they would have known that communications with one stopped, or that one somehow stopped going to their meetings.
One reaper is made from one cycle of extermination, and i doubt their memory decays.
And considering where the corpse was, it would not be unthinkable that the world hosted a race that the reapers would have to deal with to erase the evidence of their mission since noone but TIM had a clue what was.
Someone had to clean up that battle.

Or is this a case of reaperbullying?

Now that i think about it, the Leviathan of Dis was also a reapercorpse lingering around (a billion years old according to the wiki), albeit we dont see or interact with it.

Well, i guess leaving them behind to indoctrinate people in their sleep makes for a conveniet explanation.

Now, how does a corpse indoctrinate?
Sending out a signal millions of years after its death that affects the physiology of races that would not come to exist until hundreds of millions of years later?

How does this even work?

[May90]

Perhaps there is a difference between forced and willing in the out come. Perhaps the subject being sacrificed makes all the difference. As the Leviathans said the crucible has never been completed and its outcome is unknown. The Catalyst didn't know what the crucible would do until it was connected to him and he was made aware of the exact outcome of the device.

Fair enough. It is possible that Catalyst was so complex that even Reapers could not understand how it worked using schematics only. It was only when it was connected to the Citadel when it realized that it was indeed a good alternative.

Now, how does a corpse indoctrinate?
Sending out a signal millions of years after its death that affects the physiology of races that would not come to exist until hundreds of millions of years later?

How does this even work?

I don't think a dead Reaper is able to send any signals outside. However, scientists boarding the Reaper to learn its secrets quickly become Reapers' slaves, as happened with the Cerberus group which boarded the Reaper Shepard got IFF from.

Of course, by leaving a corpse they risk by their secrets being discovered. But let's look at the reality. The last cycle was the most successful cycle ever in fight against the Reapers - it is possibly the first cycle to learn about Reapers before their arrival by Prothean beacons. Still almost no one believed in them even after one of them almost seized the Citadel. So, a dead Reaper wouldn't change much, any scientific group boarding it would be enslaved which only helps Reapers, and anyone else finding it would just think that it is a ship of some ancient race we shouldn't care much about.

After all, Reapers do not erase ALL the evidence. They haven't destroyed all Prothean ruins completely, and organics knew that Protheans vanished under strange circumstances. There was a lot of evidence all over the Galaxy to collect and analyze - however, without knowing exactly what to look for, all this evidence wouldn't seem to make any sense, just scattered fragments of the old battles that no longer matter.

[Deleted]

Now, how does a corpse indoctrinate?
Sending out a signal millions of years after its death that affects the physiology of races that would not come to exist until hundreds of millions of years later?

How does this even work?

Well they -have- been following the evolution of organic sapient species for... a very long time. It's quite likely they discovered patterns in the way sapient brains work and found a "catch-all" method of exploiting it.

[Deleted]

Reapers have the masterkey to biological evolution?

Sounds like it would be a good idea to enslave one or two of them.

[Durandro]

Perhaps there is a difference between forced and willing in the out come. Perhaps the subject being sacrificed makes all the difference. As the Leviathans said the crucible has never been completed and its outcome is unknown. The Catalyst didn't know what the crucible would do until it was connected to him and he was made aware of the exact outcome of the device.

Yet if the 'Catalyst' knew that a sacrifice would be required, why not just ask other cycles rather then systematically butcher everything in sight?

Makes more sense that its just full of shit and is doubletalking its enemy into doing what it wants.

[May90]

Reapers have the masterkey to biological evolution?

Sounds like it would be a good idea to enslave one or two of them.

Illusive Man thought that as well...

Yet if the 'Catalyst' knew that a sacrifice would be required, why not just ask other cycles rather then systematically butcher everything in sight?

Em... And how would they ask? "We are going to butcher you all. Are you willing to sacrifice a person to our cause so that we could make you all like us, half-organics, half-robots, without any resistance?".

[Deleted]

Illusive Man thought that as well...

And he was right all along, as expected.
Good ol' TIM, he knows whats good.

[rhorle]

Yet if the 'Catalyst' knew that a sacrifice would be required, why not just ask other cycles rather then systematically butcher everything in sight? Makes more sense that its just full of shit and is doubletalking its enemy into doing what it wants.

They just killed your entire planet, but saved you. And now you are supposed to be 100% with out a doubt willing? However we know from the events in the game that Shepard really is some thing special in the universe. There is a reason why he became a spectre, got the Normandy (all 3 times), and survived Death. Perhaps it is more then just a willing sacrifice but someone like Shepard who makes his own fate (as the leviathans put it).

But it could be double talking to make Shepard do what the Catalyst wanted. But that isn't such a bad thing since what the Catalyst wanted is good for the galaxy (post Crucible that is). Maybe it is even as simple as the Crucible being different with this cycles technology and discoveries. Look at how Liara created beacons to survive the purge a lot better then the Protheans did.

Perhaps this cycle just had serendipity.

[Very Tired]

I'm starting to wonder how the total Reaper population is affected with each cycle. In Mass Effect they seem to be able to take out quite a few of them and I would hope the past cycles would have been able to do near the same. Unless they were planning on squeezing more of those Collector Human Reapers out they would have a Net Loss in Reapers for this cycle. If every cycle were to be able to do that, there shouldn't be much of a Reaper force to invade.

Also shouldn't there be more different looking Reapers of all the past races if they were planning on making a human one?

[Elim Garak]

Shepard is not something special in the Universe. It only seems so because she is the protagonist and writers gave her "Special" aura in later games.

ME1:
- Achievement - Become the first human Spectre. (But not the first Council's choice) - nothing particularly Special on the Universal scale.
- Achievement - Be the one who gets into the contact with the Prothean Beacon. (After Saren, and in competition with other 2 humans) - nothing particularly Special on the Universal scale.
- Achievement - Prevent Sovereign from activating the Citadel Relay. (Only anyone on Shepard's team was able to do it, Vigil spoke English fluently, Shepard just took credit - I mean writers gave it all to Shepard)

ME2:
- Achievement - Make Cerberus believe that you are special (by completing ME1 on easy) so they would resurrect you (from your special death) - nothing particularly Special on the Universal scale.
- Achievement - Survive the Suicide Mission (that was a team effort) - nothing particularly Special on the Universal scale.

ME3:
- Achievement - Make everyone believe you are the next coming of Jesus (by completing ME2 on easy) - nothing particularly Special on the Universal scale.
- Achievement - Use your influence as Jesus to gather an army (in a situation where not gathering into an army was stupid) - nothing particularly Special on the Universal scale.
- Achievement - Beat Anderson to the Starchild - now that is special - Anderson is more experienced and he was the first Spectre choice, and we know he only failed because of Saren.
- Achievement - Choose the way you finally die in - nothing particularly Special on the Universal scale.

[zealo]

Its not shepards combat ability that makes him special, there are plenty of others that could probably have done the same during all 3 games, its the fact that he becomes an icon of humanity because he was the one that did those things that makes him special.