How Will Shepard Beat the Reapers? (Minor Mass Effect Spoilers)

[Zhukov]

A linchpin. Some kind of 'leader' Reaper or control hub or somesuch.

Whatever forces you've managed to scrape together engage the Reaper fleet while Shepard & Co head for that one vital target.

Although I'd actually prefer they not do that. I like the previous poster's idea of having to destroy Sol. Lure the Reapers in with the prospect of an all-or-nohing battle, then launch dark matter into the sun or something.

 

[Quigglebert]

they find the prothean gun that wrecked the reaper you get the iff from

 

[Falseprophet]

If Mass Effect was more faithful to its Babylon 5 influences--***B5 SPOILERS***--the trick to defeating space Cthulhu would be to give them a really bloody nose, then convince them to stop playing with civilization-sized ant farms and leave the galaxy already. (Remember when "diplomacy" wasn't a dirty word?)

But I suspect Shepherd will find some kind of MacGuffin offswitch and shut them all down. And to complete the space Jesus metaphor, at the cost of his/her own life.

 

[Vie]

Who says he's going to win?

I've had a suspicion, for a long time now, that the choice you get at the end of this series is: Earth or everywhere else.

i.e. Lure the Reapers to Earth - or hell that's the place they chose to go anyway - then use dark energy to send the sun Nova.

 

[Atmos Duality]

I'm certain it will end because of a McGuffin-come-Plot Device.
It will probably be some cheap, cop-out super item hidden in a Doom Fortress in the ass-crack of another dimension or such.

Either that, or he'll convince the Reapers to stop by pushing their conveniently installed REAPER SUICIDE BUTTON (also a McGuffin).

Either way, I'd be genuinely surprised if it DOESN'T suck.

 

[Ordinaryundone]

Weaponized Dark Matter is a good theory, like whatever it was that was making Halestrom's star die in Tali recruitment mission.

Other than that, guns and 'splosions, like in ME1. Its not like Reapers are invincible, its already been shown they can be killed through conventional means.

Except that it still took a few dozen battleships to take down ONE, and the only reason they managed to take it down was because Shepard blew its avatar to froggy robot bits.

The Reaper in the ME3 gameplay preview takes multiple railgun shots to the hull and it is still moving.

Maybe all Reapers have to have an avatar? All the ones that we've seen have had one. It would be ironic, that to be as powerful as they are they have to rely on an organic go between. So part of the game could be hunting down and destroying them to weaken the Reapers enough for the fleets to finish them off.

And really, very very tough =/= invincible. I'm sure they'll find some weapon (or, more likely, Shepard and co. will find some weapon) capable of harming them.

 

[AMAZED]

More likely is that it will just be a united offensive against the reapers, before they relied in fracturing the galaxy and isolating them a divide and conquer strategy. It's possible they can't stand up to an entire galaxy moving to destroy them at once.

 

[gigastrike]

With all of the information coming out about the "galactic readiness" meter, I'm guessing it's just going to be a stright up brawl with no real secret weapon.

 

[Kingsnake661]

Few things to keep in mind.

1. We've come to find out, more or less, that not all reapers are the BIG, capital ships Sovereign was. Granted, there are prolly alot of them big ships, but in general, it's not a fleet of "Sovereigns" like it's been made out to be.

2. Sovereign was taken down, more or less, but one wing, or fleet of earth ships, not the whole earth navy, and what was left of a suprise attack on the citidal that started with them knocking out communations so they couldn't call for help. There were alot more reinforcments to be had, if they'd known they were under attack in the first place.

3. The reapers are burning ALOT of resorces and fuel to make the trip to the cidital. Not only did they have to come back from dark space, but once the alpha relay was blown, that added possible up to a years worth more FTL travel, which has to be taxing.

So i think there's a SLIGHT misconception as to how powerful the reaper fleet really is, IE, they aren't all Sovereigns, and are buring ALOT of resorces right now, and we aren't as WEAK as we seemed. It was a suprise attack, and a fraction of the galaxies full milatery might. A head on fight, with the WHOLE galaxie, as in, EVERYONE, might be more then the reapers can handle.

After all, all reapers invasions START with a sneak attack that cripples interstaller travel. where they can pick apart picemeal resistince one system at a time. That won't be the case this time. It's going to be a head on fight, after a long exidos, with a unitifed galaxie (once i'm done with them). Something they may well have NEVER faced before.

And of course, there may be a magic Maguffin. That can always happen to if the writers get lazy... >.>

 

[HerbertTheHamster]

With the power of quicksave and regenerating health.

 

[everythingbeeps]

Well, the recent announcement by BioWare about the multiplayer seems to hint that Shepard WON'T beat the Reapers....it points out that the game is just about survival, which leads me to think they don't defeat them once and for all...they either push them back, or trap them somewhere.

 

[Kasten]

Find that one Prothean Railgun that crippled that one Reaper and made a new asshole on a planet, make an entire system of them, then put everything we have there, and effing DARE them to go ahead and try it. Also, Cain shot and Widow rifles to the face.

 

[XMark]

Shepard will announce that he/she is tired of the reaper's disingenuous assertions, and punch it in the face.

 

[PaganFury]

It will be something weak like the computer virus in Independance day. You and your squad will infiltrate a reaper and stick a memory card in its USB slot and then the credits will role. But as long as its better than dragon age 2 I will be very happy.

 

[Da Orky Man]

How do you think the Reapers will be defeated, considering one of them managed to demolish half a fleet before going down?

Here is my theory: Dark Matter. I've been playing through both games over the past few weeks, and I've noticed quite a few references to dark matter that have no other context in the story. Namely on Tali's recruitment mission and a few galactic newscasts. I feel that somehow, dark matter is going to be weaponized in the game as a means of combating the Reapers with superpowerful weapons.

So that's my pitch, what do you guys think is going to happen?

I've been wondering if I was the only one to notice that. Newscasts on illium, on Haestrom, everywhere.

 

[Ironbat92]

Maybe it will be like an evil computer virus where if you take out the original program, then the rest will fall.

 

[go-10]

by shooting them!

 

[Spygon]

Shepard will fight better than a krogan and run faster than a leopard.No one is better than commander shepard

 

[Michael Hirst]

Scooby Doo Ending: It was the Turian council guy after all

Hideo Kojima Ending: Nanomachines

Shit ending: Shepard finds the head reaper and it has an off button.

Crap ending: Computer virus wipes out the Reapers.

To be honest Bioware have dug a pretty deep pit and anything that resembles a Deus Ex Machina will be leaping into that pit for Mass Effect 3 to really fail at the most important part. If they can come up with something actually imaginitive that requires great sacrifice and perserverence then they will have done their job and I will salute them.