Kinguendo said:
No, they didnt have a fighting chance. They were fighting the Reapers in the Sol system... as you and I saw before you do the last mission, every system bar the Horsehead Nebula(?) which you were just in is under Reaper control.
Not at all - read the "Miracle at Palaven" entry in the Codex. The Reapers may be
present in every cluster, but they aren't necessarily
winning every battle.
And who says that there has only ever been just 1 dominant species in each cycle before Shepards cycle?
Javik indicates as much when he names the inusannon as the Protheans' predecessors, suggesting that - like the Protheans - they were a single species that spanned the galaxy. In fact, it's strongly implied that the only reason this cycle has multiple species working together is due to Prothean interference: their presence on Mars, the beacon on Thessia (and is it a coincidence that the asari then reached the Citadel first and, rather than conquer the salarians, invited them to join as equals?) and so on.
And if there was only 1 Dominant species in each cycle before (again, highly unlikely) that means they have been numerous enough, intelligent enough and strong enough to dominate the rest of the universe before the Reapers came along and wiped them out. Something the Krogan nor the Rachni were capable of who apparently posed a large threat to the Universe and STILL EXIST, so these single dominant species are significantly better than every race that exists within Shepards cycle... yet got wiped out without them even taking out 1 Reaper, is your argument?
Again, you're simply ignoring established canon here. Vigil is very clear about this in the first game: the reason the Reapers manage to wipe out every species that dominates the galaxy is because
their first move is to take the Citadel. Javik repeats this in the third game: the Reapers begin their invasion by destroying the central government, shutting down
all the Mass Relays, and gaining access to all the information on the dominant species: how they fight, what technology they use, defensive strategies and so on.
This
does not happen in the current cycle. You - and every species fighting the Reapers - can use the Mass Relays. The Reapers have little active knowledge of how different species fight (again, read the "Miracle at Palaven" entry). Yes, they're still technologically superior, but guess what? The Rebellion shouldn't have defeated the technologically and numerically superior Empire. The Ura should have easily crushed a single boy with a hammer. And Sauron's armies would have conquered Minas Tirith if a bunch of ghosts hadn't decided to turn the tides. The point of these scenarios in fantastic literature isn't to give you a dry analysis of who would win in a direct, brute-force confrontation, but possible ways a superior entity can be felled by a combination of its own mistakes and the other side's determination and intelligence.
And if you're so insistent on realism, look up the fall of the Roman Empire for a
historical example of how sometimes, being the most powerful and advanced force in a conflict doesn't guarantee victory.