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ThoseDeafMutes · Mar 16, 2011

They're not undetectable - their signal just doesn't travel faster than the speed of light, so by the time you see it, they've taken off. There would still be a 'wake' left behind, and any station that happened to be inside of that before they got to the relay would be able to phone ahead and go "Holy shit guys this radiation, something's coming, might wanna lock the door". They'd still be able to spread around pretty damn quick, but there would be enough time for the Citadel to scramble its defense.

Fair, but this requires observation stations in the systems you're passing through (and unless they're pointing a telescope at the exact point you're zipping past they won't see you anyway, but I digress), and most relays aren't even mapped, let alone most systems being occupied. I mentioned attacking from "Above" the galactic plane because this passes through the minimum number of systems - the Milky Way is only 1000 ly thick compared to 10,000 wide. And again, all they have to do is hit the first relay and then zip straight to the citadel for a surprise attack.

The amount of time you get for a warning is "less than a day", at most (probably more like an hour of warning), compared to the weeks Sovereign gave them by tipping the galaxy off, and then the two+ years it gave by failing and getting destroyed. It also doesn't require waiting 1000 years and giving them the time they need to examine the corpse of their fallen reaper bretherin (which will not end well for the reapres, THANIX GUNS HO).

And while 'tons and tons of Reapers' is still probably a losing battle, it might not be so entirely one-sided; remember, Sovereign fucked shit up, but it was Sovereign and a gigantic Geth fleet that did the attack. It's very doubtful that an individual Reaper can fight a proper fleet to a standstill (if they could, why bother with the Rachni and the Geth in the first place?). The Reapers would probably win, but it's quite likely they'd take some pretty heavy losses, which I'm sure they wouldn't be too happy about.

Sovereign didn't even fire a single shot until after it had taken a pounding for more than 15 minutes beccacuse it was attached to the Citadel towever. Even during it's initla charge all it did was ram a ship that was in its way (and probably not because it wanted to destroy it but becacuse it wanted to take the fastest route to the citadel). Sovvy having the geth fleet implies that it didn't feel confident that it could take the fleet itself (or at least it couldn't stand up to their bombardment while it wasn't fighitng back, attached to the tower). However, when it did start firing it was a slaughter, one-shotting the Alliance cruisers etc. EDI in ME2 stated that "Reapers are impervious to dreadnought fire", and while I'm willing to take that a an exaggeration (I don't buy that they can't be harmed by it given the previous inference about Sovereign vs Citadel fleet), it still does mean that a fleet of 200 Reapers would be an untouchable military juggernaut. The citadel fleet only had one known dreadnought to begin with, the Destiny Ascension.

I would be stunned if the reapers even took a single casualty in that sort of battle.

While yes, they technically could have done that at any time, there's no telling what kind of toll it would actually take on them. The energy expenditure alone might be massive enough to leave them 'starved', weakened and vulnerable.

Circa ME1 this would have been a good excuse, but once again we've had the derelic Reaper that lasted 37 million years powering it's core to stop it from falling into a star. Once at FTL speeds you don't need to expend more fuel, you just need to keep powering the core (Newton etc). I don't think this is a very elegant solution. I would much prefer if they could not fly back at all and instead Haestrom's sun turned into some funky portal they could use or something like that, because at least then it would explain this away well.

HK-47 · Mar 16, 2011

Wiggum2007 said:
Yeah there are plenty of inconsistencies with the ME lore, but the Reapers being able to reach the galaxy in a reasonable amount of time without the relays isn't a retcon. Non-relay FTL drives have been in the lore since the first game, and you see it plenty of times with the Normandy and in the Codex. It just may take years to travel across the galaxy rather than the instantaneous travel afforded by the relays. Even Shepard's speech at the ME1 is "Sovereign was just a vanguard, the Reapers are still coming and I'll find some way to stop them."

Then people argue that the Reapers being able to reach the galaxy with normal FTL drives devalues Shepard's victory at the end of ME1. Remember that stopping Sovereign from activating the Citadel wasn't just significant for providing an instant link to dark space, but also for relinquishing their control of the mass relays. The Reapers had a very intricate, systematic plan of shutting down the relays and isolating systems from each other, then patiently and carefully wiping them all out over many years. Without that power they cannot afford to be so patient and will actually have to face a united resistance, though even that shouldn't be nearly enough to stop them. I'm more than a bit worried that we're gunna get some unsatisfactory deus ex machina resolution in ME3 (Thanix Cannons for everybody!!!).

And I still don't know what the fuck was up with the Terminator Reaper at the end of ME2. :/

No one does. That and the whole "humans are more genetically diverse" thing made me want to cave my head in.

Also the Tupari ad machine is totally a secret Reaper.

EmCeeGramr · Mar 16, 2011

The Terminator Reaper was supposed to be the core of the actual giant Reaper shell, or something, at least according to the art book.

Why they needed it to look like a Terminator with glowing red LED eyes and teeth, I do not know.

Wiggum2007 · Mar 16, 2011

On the subject of plot inconsistencies, I still can't wrap my head around the Keeper plotline/reveal in ME1. So I get that the Keepers could be useful to have around for maintenance of the Citadel station, but then we get that huge reveal that Sovereign sends the signal to the Keepers to activate the Citadel relay and allow the Reapers in from dark space (which the Protheans on Illos took advantage of by tampering with the Keepers so the Reapers couldn't activate the Citadel). What the fuck that makes no sense!! Why that extra redundant fucking middle step of sending the signal to the Keepers who then signal the Citadel to open?!? Obviously Sovereign's signal is strong enough to reach the Citadel because it reaches the Keepers there, so why not just directly signal the Citadel to open?? Why throw this completely fucking unnecessary kink in things that just affords one more way for your plans to be thwarted? AAAAAAAAAAAHH it doesn't make any seeeeeeeeeeeeense.

HK-47 · Mar 16, 2011

EmCeeGramr said:
The Terminator Reaper was supposed to be the core of the actual giant Reaper shell, or something, at least according to the art book.

Why they needed it to look like a Terminator with glowing red LED eyes and teeth, I do not know.

Love the DP avatar, EmCee.

droopy · Mar 16, 2011

It looked like people because it was made of people. It just makes sense.
And clearly the cuttlefish will be our future overlords as they seem to end up running shit and getting reapered every other time.

Lostconfused · Mar 16, 2011

Wiggum2007 said:
On the subject of plot inconsistencies, I still can't wrap my head around the Keeper plotline/reveal in ME1. So I get that the Keepers could be useful to have around for maintenance of the Citadel station, but then we get that huge reveal that Sovereign sends the signal to the Keepers to activate the Citadel relay and allow the Reapers in from dark space (which the Protheans on Illos took advantage of by tampering with the Keepers so the Reapers couldn't activate the Citadel). What the fuck that makes no sense!! Why that extra redundant fucking middle step of sending the signal to the Keepers who then signal the Citadel to open?!? Obviously Sovereign's signal is strong enough to reach the Citadel because it reaches the Keepers there, so why not just directly signal the Citadel to open?? Why throw this completely fucking unnecessary kink in things that just affords one more way for your plans to be thwarted? AAAAAAAAAAAHH it doesn't make any seeeeeeeeeeeeense.

Actually Sovereign signals the Citadel which then signals the Keepers to activate the Mass Relay. The Protheans modified the Citadel's system so it wouldn't respond to a signal from the Reapers and the Keepers would only react to the Citadel so the Reapers couldn't control them directly either.

Or at least I am pretty sure that's how it works. I guess you should go youtube to watch the conversations with Vigil again. Because that's where he explains it all for you.

Wiggum2007 · Mar 16, 2011

Lostconfused said:
Actually Sovereign signals the Citadel which then signals the Keepers to activate the Mass Relay. The Protheans modified the Citadel's system so it wouldn't respond to a signal from the Reapers and the Keepers would only react to the Citadel so the Reapers couldn't control them directly either.

Or at least I am pretty sure that's how it works. I guess you should go youtube to watch the conversations with Vigil again. Because that's where he explains it all for you.

So Sovereign signal the Citadels which signals the Keepers who signal the Citadel relay? That just sounds even more redundant!

Fimbulvetr · Mar 16, 2011

Lostconfused said:
Actually Sovereign signals the Citadel which then signals the Keepers to activate the Mass Relay. The Protheans modified the Citadel's system so it wouldn't respond to a signal from the Reapers and the Keepers would only react to the Citadel so the Reapers couldn't control them directly either.

Or at least I am pretty sure that's how it works. I guess you should go youtube to watch the conversations with Vigil again. Because that's where he explains it all for you.

Actually I think the Keepers just evolved to not give a rat's ass about the Reaper signal.

But yeah, the Citadel was tampered with.

Lostconfused · Mar 16, 2011

Wiggum2007 said:
So Sovereign signal the Citadels which signals the Keepers who signal the Citadel relay? That just sounds even more redundant!

Redundant but not a plot inconsistency.

Fimbulvetr said:
Actually I think the Keepers just evolved to not give a rat's ass about the Reaper signal.

But yeah, the Citadel was tampered with.

They did but that's an extra detail that isn't really significant to the main point of that Protheans managed to get complete control of the citadel and sabotage any future attempts of the Reapers to go on a killing spree.

Which once again makes the "Sheppard is special" idea seem to be absolutely stupid.

Wiggum2007 · Mar 16, 2011

The Keepers still seem completely pointless to the story then. And then they make a big deal talking about the completely inaccessible core of the Citadel that only the keepers have access to. If this area exists why aren't the controls for the relay in there instead of in the Citadel tower or wherever that the Ilos Protheans were able to manipulate it?

Also according to the ME wiki Vigil says that the Protheans stopped the cycle by interfering with the signal to the Keepers that allows them to activate the relay, it doesn't seem to mention anything about the Protheans being able to directly tamper with the Citadel's systems.

And yeah I hate the whole space jesus/super hero thing they pulled with Shepard in ME2, ugh.

Fimbulvetr · Mar 16, 2011

Lostconfused said:
Redundant but not a plot inconsistency.

They did but that's an extra detail that isn't really significant to the main point of that Protheans managed to get complete control of the citadel and sabotage any future attempts of the Reapers to go on a killing spree.

Which once again makes the "Sheppard is special" idea seem to be absolutely stupid.

Wait.

According to the ME wiki: "However, once an organic species has settled on the Citadel and reached the required level of technological advancement, the Reapers' current vanguard, a single Reaper left behind to monitor the situation, sends a signal to the keepers compelling them to activate the Citadel relay to dark space, and begin the process of genocide. The Protheans succeeded in altering this reaction to the signal, though too late to save the Protheans themselves from extinction at the hands of the Reapers. The keepers have changed and evolved so they only respond to the Citadel itself; they are now no longer under Reaper control and pose no threat to anyone. "

Apparently they do signal the Keepers instead of the Citadel directly.

HK-47 · Mar 16, 2011

Fimbulvetr said:
Wait.

According to the ME wiki: "However, once an organic species has settled on the Citadel and reached the required level of technological advancement, the Reapers' current vanguard, a single Reaper left behind to monitor the situation, sends a signal to the keepers compelling them to activate the Citadel relay to dark space, and begin the process of genocide. The Protheans succeeded in altering this reaction to the signal, though too late to save the Protheans themselves from extinction at the hands of the Reapers. The keepers have changed and evolved so they only respond to the Citadel itself; they are now no longer under Reaper control and pose no threat to anyone. "

Apparently they do signal the Keepers instead of the Citadel directly.

Hey if it worked for eons, why change it?

Lostconfused · Mar 16, 2011

Wiggum2007 said:
The Keepers still seem completely pointless to the story then. And then they make a big deal talking about the completely inaccessible core of the Citadel that only the keepers have access to. If this area exists why aren't the controls for the relay in there instead of in the Citadel tower or wherever that the Ilos Protheans were able to manipulate it?

Also according to the ME wiki Vigil says that the Protheans stopped the cycle by interfering with the signal to the Keepers that allows them to activate the relay, it doesn't seem to mention anything about the Protheans being able to directly tamper with the Citadel's systems.

And yeah I hate the whole space jesus/super hero thing they pulled with Shepard in ME2, ugh.

The Keepers were there so that all the future biological species would be able to use the Citadel without actually learning anything about operating it. Protheans clearly being around for way too long managed to figure out most of the technology that the Reapers left behind, namely the Mass Relays and the Citadel. Because some one has to be able to trigger the Citadel station to signal the keepers, so that means there is a way to access it from outside thus its a vulnerability that the Protheans managed to exploit.

HK-47 said:
Hey if it worked for eons, why change it?

Pretty much.

Wiggum2007 · Mar 16, 2011

HK-47 said:
Hey if it worked for eons, why change it?

But why add that extra step in the first place? Like, hey y'know we could just directly signal the Citadel relay to open but that's too simple, let's make it so we have to signal the bugs to signal the relay. That makes more sense.

Lostconfused said:
The Keepers were there so that all the future biological species would be able to use the Citadel without actually learning anything about operating it. Protheans clearly being around for way too long managed to figure out most of the technology that the Reapers left behind, namely the Mass Relays and the Citadel.

Pretty much.

Yeah should've phrased that better, I understand why the Keepers were important as far as maintenance of the station and such, I was just referring specifically to their role in opening the relay.

EmCeeGramr · Mar 16, 2011

The thing that bothered me about "the Reapers are just going to fly back" is that it's... mundane. Yeah, they obviously had to get back somehow for the final confrontation. It's just that it could have been like... oh, they hid a secret backup relay (that connects to the Citadel or something) in the galactic core, where no sentient race could possibly reach or detect, and the Collectors were trying to power it up or fix it or whatever, and you had to stop them from unleashing the Reapers but one gets through and you have some huge fight against it or something.

Instead it was, "the Collectors are making humans into goo to make that boss from Contra 3 with a weak point in its eye, and meanwhile the Reapers just woke up and started flying to the Milky Way."

Wiggum2007 · Mar 16, 2011

EmCeeGramr said:
The thing that bothered me about "the Reapers are just going to fly back" is that it's... mundane. Yeah, they obviously had to get back somehow for the final confrontation. It's just that it could have been like... oh, they hid a secret backup relay (that connects to the Citadel or something) in the galactic core, where no sentient race could possibly reach or detect, and the Collectors were trying to power it up or whatever, and you had to stop them from unleashing the Reapers but one gets through and you have some huge fight against it or something.

No Bioware couldn't go with that cuz it would be too good.

Lostconfused · Mar 16, 2011

Fimbulvetr said:
Wait.

According to the ME wiki: "However, once an organic species has settled on the Citadel and reached the required level of technological advancement, the Reapers' current vanguard, a single Reaper left behind to monitor the situation, sends a signal to the keepers compelling them to activate the Citadel relay to dark space, and begin the process of genocide. The Protheans succeeded in altering this reaction to the signal, though too late to save the Protheans themselves from extinction at the hands of the Reapers. The keepers have changed and evolved so they only respond to the Citadel itself; they are now no longer under Reaper control and pose no threat to anyone. "

Apparently they do signal the Keepers instead of the Citadel directly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2gum3fNe_Q at 1:10

Wiggum2007 said:
Yeah should've phrased that better, I understand why the Keepers were important as far as maintenance of the station and such, I was just referring specifically to their role in opening the relay.

I edited in some stuff to my original post. The fact that Reapers have to send a signal to the station means its something that Protheans could exploit to their advantage, and they kinda did.

EmCeeGramr said:
Instead it was, "the Collectors are making humans into goo to make that boss from Contra 3 with a weak point in its eye, and meanwhile the Reapers just woke up and started flying to the Milky Way."

My main problem with ME2. The only relevant bit of plot in the game is Legion.

Coxswain · Mar 16, 2011

ThoseDeafMutes said:
Fair, but this requires observation stations in the systems you're passing through (and unless they're pointing a telescope at the exact point you're zipping past they won't see you anyway, but I digress), and most relays aren't even mapped, let alone most systems being occupied. I mentioned attacking from "Above" the galactic plane because this passes through the minimum number of systems - the Milky Way is only 1000 ly thick compared to 10,000 wide. And again, all they have to do is hit the first relay and then zip straight to the citadel for a surprise attack.

The amount of time you get for a warning is "less than a day", at most (probably more like an hour of warning), compared to the weeks Sovereign gave them by tipping the galaxy off, and then the two+ years it gave by failing and getting destroyed. It also doesn't require waiting 1000 years and giving them the time they need to examine the corpse of their fallen reaper bretherin (which will not end well for the reapres, THANIX GUNS HO).

It wouldn't be a telescope; the energy they would emit would be a huge amount of x-rays and gamma rays; you wouldn't need to be looking in that specific direction and you wouldn't necessarily even need to be a dedicated observation station - standard instruments would probably pick it up loud and clear.
Going above the galaxy's plane might or might not be a decent idea, depending on where exactly they've situated themselves. If they're on the plane but outside the rim, that's adding quite a lot of travel distance, which feeds right back into the energy issue.

Sovereign didn't even fire a single shot until after it had taken a pounding for more than 15 minutes beccacuse it was attached to the Citadel towever. Even during it's initla charge all it did was ram a ship that was in its way (and probably not because it wanted to destroy it but becacuse it wanted to take the fastest route to the citadel). Sovvy having the geth fleet implies that it didn't feel confident that it could take the fleet itself (or at least it couldn't stand up to their bombardment while it wasn't fighitng back, attached to the tower). However, when it did start firing it was a slaughter, one-shotting the Alliance cruisers etc. EDI in ME2 stated that "Reapers are impervious to dreadnought fire", and while I'm willing to take that a an exaggeration (I don't buy that they can't be harmed by it given the previous inference about Sovereign vs Citadel fleet), it still does mean that a fleet of 200 Reapers would be an untouchable military juggernaut. The citadel fleet only had one known dreadnought to begin with, the Destiny Ascension.

I would be stunned if the reapers even took a single casualty in that sort of battle.

The shields are badass, but those are kinetic barriers, which, again - most likely a big energy consumer. And Sovereign taking hits to its shield didn't necessarily mean that it was a priority target; under concentrated fire without the Geth distraction that might not have lasted nearly as long.
Like I said, I doubt the Reapers would win, but I also doubt they'd take it effortlessly - especially when each individual squid could have significantly less power available for shielding than Sovereign did.

Circa ME1 this would have been a good excuse, but once again we've had the derelic Reaper that lasted 37 million years powering it's core to stop it from falling into a star. Once at FTL speeds you don't need to expend more fuel, you just need to keep powering the core (Newton etc). I don't think this is a very elegant solution. I would much prefer if they could not fly back at all and instead Haestrom's sun turned into some funky portal they could use or something like that, because at least then it would explain this away well.

The derelict Reaper's core was in a basic standby mode for most/all of that time - remember, it's not until you sort of trip the alarm that the shields come back online and trap you inside. Its power during that time was also most likely provided by passive solar collection - very different from actively powering FTL flight using fuel on reserve. More fuel does need to be expended, too - not necessarily to change momentum within the Mass Effect field, but to generate that field in the first place needs a substantial electric current.
Remember also that Drive Charge is a pretty important concept in the game's technical lore: generating the Mass Effect field causes a pretty huge energy buildup, and if that isn't discharged periodically, the whole ship burns up and fuses together. That's another argument against a long-way-around trip through dark space by going above the plane. There's nothing to discharge that energy up there, and if they're stuck waiting for it to happen via blackbody radiation, Compton scattering, and so forth, that could potentially be a long wait.

EmCeeGramr · Mar 16, 2011

And then maybe when the one Reaper manages to get through but when the relay gets shut down or blown up by Shepard and co, the Reaper (maybe Harbinger) gets ripped open and the core unit based on some ancient organic species crawls out, and THEN you have a boss fight against it.

instead of i dunno suddenly finding a baby human reaper and then fighting it and then having "oh btw they're on their way right now" just getting thrown in as an afterthought

Wiggum2007 · Mar 16, 2011

Alright I'm headin' out for the night so I'll have to try and wrap my head around this tomorrow but thanks for the thoughtful responses, that was just a plot point that had been bugging me for the longest time.

Fimbulvetr · Mar 16, 2011

Lostconfused said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2gum3fNe_Q at 1:10

But that still involves the whole "why not just skip the middleman" deal.

â Narayan · Mar 16, 2011

Fimbulvetr said:
But that still involves the whole "why not just skip the middleman" deal.

Because convenient plot device.

Lostconfused · Mar 16, 2011

Fimbulvetr said:
But that still involves the whole "why not just skip the middleman" deal.

Because eventually the keepers decided to listen only to that middleman.

scarybore · Mar 16, 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2gum3fNe_Q at 1:10

Here's the transcript.

The Conduit gives him access to the Citadel and the Keepers. The keepers are controlled through the Citadel. Before each invasion, a signal is sent through the station compelling the Keepers to activate the Citadel relay. After decades of feverous study, the scientists discovered a way to alter this signal. Using the Conduit, they gained access to the Citadel and made the modifications. This time, when Sovereign sent the signal to the station, the Keepers ignored it. The Reapers are trapped in dark space.

Alright I'm headin' out for the night so I'll have to try and wrap my head around this tomorrow but thanks for the thoughtful responses, that was just a plot point that had been bugging me for the longest time.

Yeah, it's always something that has bugged me a little. Then again, if Harbinger on the edge of the galaxy can control the collector general who is in the center of the galaxy, why can't the Reaper armada just send the signal themselves?

Fimbulvetr · Mar 16, 2011

Lostconfused said:
Because eventually the keepers decided to listen only to that middleman.

But they are the middleman, the question here is why the Reaper signal doesn't activate the Citadel Relay directly.

It's like the Flinstones TV remotes were the remote apparently forces a bird to press a button, when just walking up the the button yourself is faster anyway.

malfcn · Mar 16, 2011

Bought ME2 new last year and sat on it. Then bought all the DLC when it was on the cheap. Have poked at it here and there..need to catch up!

HK-47 · Mar 16, 2011

Deathcraze said:
Here's the transcript.

Yeah, it's always something that has bugged me a little. Then again, if Harbinger on the edge of the galaxy can control the collector general who is in the center of the galaxy, why can't the Reaper armada just send the signal themselves?

Never much liked the "ASSUMING CONTROL" thing. Thats damn fast communication speeds.

Fimbulvetr · Mar 16, 2011

HK-47 said:
Never much liked the "ASSUMING CONTROL" thing. Thats damn fast communication speeds.

Right into the center of the Galaxy too, and no interference either.

X-Frame · Mar 16, 2011

Just wanted to say I love the discussion going on here. Anything and everything to do with ME lore fascinates me. This DLC can't come soon enough.

Lostconfused · Mar 16, 2011

X-Frame said:
Just wanted to say I love the discussion going on here. Anything and everything to do with ME lore fascinates me. This DLC can't come soon enough.

The best thing about ME3 is that we will have something new to talk

complain

about.

MrTroubleMaker · Mar 16, 2011

Somtaaw said:
http://na.llnet.bioware.cdn.ea.com/u/f/eagames/bioware/masseffect2/resources/assets/media/screenshots/screenshot-107-p.jpg[IMG]
second screeshot[/QUOTE]
:O a mass relay ... could have picked a better shot BW :P

jackdoe · Mar 16, 2011

HK-47 said:
Never much liked the "ASSUMING CONTROL" thing. Thats damn fast communication speeds.

Yeah. That was kind of funky to say the least. What's also funky is why didn't Sovereign bolster his forces with Collector vessels on his assault on the Citadel?

Lord_Nergal · Mar 16, 2011

Oh bioware, how do you manage to continue stealing my money?

squicken · Mar 16, 2011

&#8704 said:
Because convenient plot device.

But it's more than that. It was good storytelling. Here are these little creatures that seem too good to be true. They maintain the Citadel and have ever since the Asari found it. They are introduced almost as harmless/helpless beings when Shepard first gets to the Citadel.

A sort of paternalistic relationship is established with the inhabitants towards them. Shepard is initially upset when that guy seemed to be messing with them. So to find out they were being used by the evil Sovereign to destroy all life adds even more weight to that conversation with Vigil, especially since they may have been the very first species subjugated by the Reapers.

Their inclusion is additive to the story. Even if it means an ever so slightly convoluted twist to how the Reapers open the Citadel. The shit to get riled up about is all the good story things about ME1 that ME2 did it's best to screw up. Reaper baby/special humans/pointlessness of actions at end of ME1

MrTroubleMaker · Mar 16, 2011

jackdoe said:
Yeah. That was kind of funky to say the least. What's also funky is why didn't Sovereign bolster his forces with Collector vessels on his assault on the Citadel?

They were to busy helping Harbinger's research

probably weren't in the design docs for the first game.

jackdoe · Mar 16, 2011

MrTroubleMaker said:
They were to busy helping Harbinger's research

probably weren't in the design docs for the first game.

I bet. Which is probably why they never should have had that "Assuming Control" bullshit and made it so that the Collectors were a failsafe that would activate in the event that Sovereign was killed. They have AI routines and programming rather than being directly controlled by Harbinger. Fix so much that way.

Mindlog · Mar 16, 2011

Fimbulvetr said:
Right into the center of the Galaxy too, and no interference either.

There's one on your ship @_@

They even CDNd about it.

Plays game, ignores lore, rages about it, is Batarian~~~

shoes

ThoseDeafMutes · Mar 16, 2011

It wouldn't be a telescope; the energy they would emit would be a huge amount of x-rays and gamma rays; you wouldn't need to be looking in that specific direction and you wouldn't necessarily even need to be a dedicated observation station - standard instruments would probably pick it up loud and clear.

Going to have to disagree strongly, you would need a telescope to see a nuclear explosion on the moon an that is only 8 light seconds away. Like I posted in another thread a day or so ago, point radiation sources follow the inverse square law, which makes them extremely difficult to see at large distances away.

Although you certainly would be able to see it with a telescope at the right wavelengths, it's not something you're going to notice if you aren't looking the right way, unless it's literally happening right next to you (less than a light second maybe). Also consider that at ~4400 C, it's going to be in the solar system for maybe 60 seconds at most. Not a big window of opportunity to spot that.

The shields are badass, but those are kinetic barriers, which, again - most likely a big energy consumer. And Sovereign taking hits to its shield didn't necessarily mean that it was a priority target; under concentrated fire without the Geth distraction that might not have lasted nearly as long.

Even so, it was under concentrated bombardment from the Alliance fleet for several minutes, and the shields only dropped when they did because Shepard killed his avatar (why this caused that is an open question, but...)

Like I said, I doubt the Reapers would win, but I also doubt they'd take it effortlessly - especially when each individual squid could have significantly less power available for shielding than Sovereign did.

I think you mucked up your sentence there. It also doesn't really matter, because in a world where these people weren't all idiots, Sovereign would be jumping in (with the collectors and geth) at the same time as when the fleet arrived. Actually if they were smart this would have happened during the Rachni wars, centuries before the Geth even existed, and when the military power of the races was far lower, and they had Rachni fleets under control to help them. They could have flown into Rachni territory first and fueled up if they needed it. Hey ho, they could have done the same thing in ME1 now with Heretic Geth territory. Or got the Geth to meet them part of the way and dump some fuel stores outside the galactic rim.

The derelict Reaper's core was in a basic standby mode for most/all of that time - remember, it's not until you sort of trip the alarm that the shields come back online and trap you inside.

I don't know how you have any way of quantifying this, it had to keep itself from falling into the star for 37 million years. The only way it can do this without using reaction-mass (which it surely would have run out of) is by the energy intensive reaction-less propulsion system that the Normandy uses (generates huge quantities of mass outside the ship to pull the ship towards). It would have to match the Star's gravitational pull, equal and opposite, for all that time. When you destroyed the core it was practically on the verge of falling inside the star (hence the rush to get out).

Its power during that time was also most likely provided by passive solar collection - very different from actively powering FTL flight using fuel on reserve.

A bit skeptical of this, not only because Reapers being solar powered has never been mentioned, but also because we've no reason to believe that FTL flight is actually that energy intensive. The Kodiak drop shuttles can zip around in FTL across distances comparable to the Normandy and it's far too small to have any kind of fusion reactor or significant engine.

There are also other things to consider, such as the fact that there are actually stars in "Dark Space", they are just scattered very broadly compared to galaxies. Still, stopping at a star to recharge the batteries several times is quite feasible. Some of them would even have large rocky bodies to discharge on if they needed.

More fuel does need to be expended, too - not necessarily to change momentum within the Mass Effect field, but to generate that field in the first place needs a substantial electric current.

I mean to say "Remass" not fuel there.

Remember also that Drive Charge is a pretty important concept in the game's technical lore: generating the Mass Effect field causes a pretty huge energy buildup, and if that isn't discharged periodically, the whole ship burns up and fuses together.

But this is where "37 million years of matching a star's gravity using the drive core" seems to come into play. ME2 ruined everything, lore-wise

BenTolmachoff · Mar 16, 2011

So I've been planning on waiting to (finally) start Mass Effect 1 and 2 around September so I'll be ready for ME3 this November. I've already bought all the Mass Effect 2 DLC in preparation for my play through, but what order should I play them?

UltimaPooh · Mar 16, 2011

BenTolmachoff said:
So I've been planning on waiting to (finally) start Mass Effect 1 and 2 around September so I'll be ready for ME3 this November. I've already bought all the Mass Effect 2 DLC in preparation for my play through, but what order should I play them?

Doesn't matter.

I guess the upcoming Arrival should be played last but the order of the others doesn't matter.

shinobi602 · Mar 16, 2011

Wiggum2007 said:
So Sovereign signal the Citadels which signals the Keepers who signal the Citadel relay? That just sounds even more redundant!

No, Sovereign signals the Keepers, who open the Citadel, not the Citadel itself.

The Keepers had an innate feature to receive the transmission by the Reapers, in this case, Sovereign, but the Protheans basically discovered and hacked that coded transmission, which in turn made Sovereign's signal null and void.

That's why he had to travel to the Citadel and open it manually.

Foliorum Viridum · Mar 16, 2011

This will be verrryy interesting DLC. I look forward to it.

golem · Mar 16, 2011

The way i see it to make better sense is essentially the Keepers are there to keep anyone from f'ing with the Citadel. 1) They maintain it so other races never really have an incentive to learn how it actually works and 2) just in case some uppity race messes with the way the Citadel is set up they can fix it. Now each individual Keeper might not have fine enough electronics/sensors to pick up the Reaper signal from way out yonder, but the Citadel's signaling system would do the job. The part where the plans failed is the Keepers had no way to activate should the signal be blocked, so they had no active knowledge of the signal they were expecting (so they couldnt be reverse engineered?)

Fimbulvetr · Mar 16, 2011

Mindlog said:
There's one on your ship @_@

They even CDNd about it.

Plays game, ignores lore, rages about it, is Batarian~~~

shoes

I'm not a Batarian, you're a Batarian.... YOU HUMANS ARE ALL RACIST.

Fuck Cerberus news.

shinobi602 said:
No, Sovereign signals the Keepers, who open the Citadel, not the Citadel itself.

The Keepers had an innate feature to receive the transmission by the Reapers, in this case, Sovereign, but the Protheans basically discovered and hacked that coded transmission, which in turn made Sovereign's signal null and void.

That's why he had to travel to the Citadel and open it manually.

According to the vid Lost posted, it is in fact:

Citadel > Keepers > Citadel

webrunner · Mar 16, 2011

EmCeeGramr said:
The Terminator Reaper was supposed to be the core of the actual giant Reaper shell, or something, at least according to the art book.

Why they needed it to look like a Terminator with glowing red LED eyes and teeth, I do not know.

What I though they were going for is that the Reapers Reproduce (reaperduce?) by harvesting the best species to form their next generation.

Whatever you might think of that it was better than the handwave copout in ME1 ("The reapers cultivate civilization and then wipe it out on a tens of thousands of year cycle!!" "Why do they do that?" "Iunno. They're Reapers?") - at least now we have an explanation.

Of course that makes me wonder why the current generation of reapers are giant squid monsters and not giant protheans.

Or why the termireaper looked more like a batarian than a human.

Patryn · Mar 16, 2011

EmCeeGramr said:
And then maybe when the one Reaper manages to get through but when the relay gets shut down or blown up by Shepard and co, the Reaper (maybe Harbinger) gets ripped open and the core unit based on some ancient organic species crawls out, and THEN you have a boss fight against it.

instead of i dunno suddenly finding a baby human reaper and then fighting it and then having "oh btw they're on their way right now" just getting thrown in as an afterthought

Oh god.

I have this horrible feeling you just predicted the actual final boss of ME3. That the whole point of that horrible ME2 final boss was just to set this up.

webrunner said:
What I though they were going for is that the Reapers Reproduce (reaperduce?) by harvesting the best species to form their next generation.

Whatever you might think of that it was better than the handwave copout in ME1 ("The reapers cultivate civilization and then wipe it out on a tens of thousands of year cycle!!" "Why do they do that?" "Iunno. They're Reapers?") - at least now we have an explanation.

Of course that makes me wonder why the current generation of reapers are giant squid monsters and not giant protheans.

Or why the termireaper looked more like a batarian than a human.

But they never should have bothered explaining how they reproduce or whether they do at all!

The way ME1 sets up things, the Reapers = Cthulu and the Old Gods from H.P. Lovecraft.

They're an unknowable evil. It's part of their mystique. It's part of the twist in ME1: That you think you understand what's going on, but no, you actually have no fucking clue.

Then ME2 comes along and it's like, well, guess we have to start humanizing these things! Except that all it serves to accomplish is making the Reapers seem less mysterious and less imposing. It's like how all the Star Wars prequels accomplished is making Darth Vader seem a lot less cool. It's better when you don't know!

I would have rather they never delve into an explanation of where they come from or who made it (although I fully expect ME3 to answer these questions, unfortunately). They're just there, and they're just evil.

angelfly · Mar 16, 2011

New character? I hope so.

Lostconfused · Mar 16, 2011

Patryn said:
Then ME2 comes along and it's like, well, guess we have to start humanizing these things! Except that all it serves to accomplish is making the Reapers seem less mysterious and less imposing. It's like how all the Star Wars prequels accomplished is making Darth Vader seem a lot less cool. It's better when you don't know!

Heh, midichlorians.

close to the edge · Mar 16, 2011

Grisby said:
Techno Turian is pleased by this news.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWYUiVfZo9k

Reminds me of Techno Viking.

Also, did not expect another ME2 DLC to come out, so I'm pleasantly surprised.

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