Mass Effect 2 Plot Holes (Spoilers)

[Aac18]

it's okay for being on a planet, but for a space ship? plain stupid, I guess it could of made up the "core" for the ship, with the actual ship built around it (doubt they have that in mind but that's how I chose to view it)

If you own the collectors edition of mass effect 2 (and thus the artbook) you can actually see what the finished human reaper would look like. It looked like a modified version of sovereign so no the stupid looking reaper larva wasn't going to become a giant terminator (thank god)

 

[Crimsane]

Hmm. Isn't mentioned whether the Reapers have other servants collecting races to create new Reapers with, but I'd like to think we just stopped their ability to reproduce by killing off their servants (for now, anyway.) Gaining the schematics seen in the end cutscene would likely give an advantage as far as knowing Reapers' weaknesses, helping destroy them when they finally do invade (well, that and having "destroyed" the derelict Reaper by destroying its core.) Hell, depending on your choices, you might have more allies for ME3. I want to fight alongside the Geth. It's the least they could do, considering I just strengthened their numbers by millions.

As for the IFF shuttle trip thing, I agree, that was a bit odd. Smelled like another setup by the Illusive Man to get Shepard to rush into Collector base to me. Maybe he felt like you were lolly-gagging too much, and he wanted that base now, dammit. Not much better reason to rush off headlong into suicide mission than having your entire crew abducted.

 

[tkioz]

it's okay for being on a planet, but for a space ship? plain stupid, I guess it could of made up the "core" for the ship, with the actual ship built around it (doubt they have that in mind but that's how I chose to view it)

If you own the collectors edition of mass effect 2 (and thus the artbook) you can actually see what the finished human reaper would look like. It looked like a modified version of sovereign so no the stupid looking reaper larva wasn't going to become a giant terminator (thank god)

Oh that's good, I didn't get the collectors edition mainly because money sucks and I couldn't justify dropping an extra $40 (almost half my weekly household food budget) when I had already dropped $109 on the game.

 

[RikSharp]

Not actually reading a damn thing in this thread for fear of spoilers.

But how did you know about Thermal Clips when you woke up?

thermal clips were made and all guns retrofitted with them just after ME1 finished. it says so in the codex...

as for plot holes.
as far as ME2 goes it had a fairly strong plot but still succumbed to middle trilogy syndrome.
the first and last parts make sense and can stand on their own, the middle part needs the before and after to make sense and is the weaker of the three storywise.

(i say this expecting ME3 to also conform to this. i hopes i am not disappointed)

 

[Srkkl]

2. The reason no reapers looked like colectors (protheans) was because they never made a reaper out of Colector DNA. The reason for the human Reaper(at least what I figured) was that the humans weren't much value to the Reapers, like the Protheans were, but also needed to be destroyed to reach the ultimate goal of the Reapers so instead of just destroying them they used them to make a new reaper.

3. Everyone else in those containers were dead and used on the Human reaper so it wouldn't have killed any human in the process of blowing up the Ship.

 

[RikSharp]

Banes was part of Dr. Chloe Michel's questline on the Citadel. When Morlan or the Krogan or whoever is blackmailing her (I can't remember which one a this point) and you intercede, they tell you that it's Banes who hired them. The doctor tells you to ask Kahoku about it (hopefully he's not dead at this point). You can ask him an Anderson and Anderson simply tells you he was found dead on a derelict ship... like 2 years before if I remember right (so how did he start a blackmailing scheme?). Anyway, the whole thing just stops dead at that point.

that bugged me too, the first time i played ME1, kahoku was already dead by that point. so on the second playthrough i made sure he wasnt and got rewarded with this. nothing. it went nowhere. at all.

 

[RikSharp]

Has anyone considered the possibility that Shepard is a reaper? At the start when you see him getting rebuilt: some of that robotic stuff could be from Sovereign,maybe Cerberus got hold of some of his remains, kinda reverse engineered him (Reapers are formed from sentient beings so why not rebuild a human with parts from a Reaper) and created Reaper Shepard.
This links in to why Wilson was concerned about you at the start,he was worried about the lengths Cerberus would go to stop the Reapers and tried to stop/circumvent that from happening.

p.s sorry this is my 1st post and it seems more of a conspiracy thoery now that I read it through

now thats a good conspiracy theory. i like it!
also, welcome to the escapist!

 

[ElephantGuts]

Hmnm...very good points. So few people notice this though, probably because the story, even if it is a bad one, is told so incredibly well. Which we must at least give Bioware credit for. Though it is a shame they couldn't make a more solid storyline, considering how great the Mass Effect universe is.

 

[gigastrike]

1: We needed to find out what the Collectors were up to. The Illusive Man, in particular, wanted to use the Collector technology for his own war efforts against the Reapers. Cutting the Collectors off from the rest of the galaxy would have removed them as a threat, but the Reapers are still coming and we needed information.

2: I'm totally with you. I accept that they might try to use organic components when building a reaper (even though that's kinda opposite of what Sovereign made his beliefs out to be), but why would it form in the shape of whatever creature it was made out of? What's the point? Scare tactic? Unnessecary. DNA from cells re-designed to use synthetic components instead of bone material? No, too much metal. Maybe DNA was used as blueprints? Unlikely, too many people were required. (Me: Mordin, what did I say about going on my computer?) Must go. Experiments.

3: I hated that too. All we really did was answer a few questions and stop the Collectors from killing more humans to create one Reaper. I suppose the second and third entries in a series are usually connected more closely than with the first as a rule of thumb. Was much accomplished in Halo 2? Modern Warefare 2? Assassin's Creed 2? All second installments have cliffhangers, because they lead directly into the next.

 

[Soren91]

Well can you imagine what would happen is a mass relay was destroyed? Plus, Illusive Man wanted to use the collector technology so I doubt he would want to destroy the Omega Relay,

 

[thenoblitt]

1.) Remember the Mu Relay? That got hit by a super nova. It survived. We can't just blow up relays whenever we feel like it. Besides, Cerberus wanted to acquire Collector technology.

2.) Many people have wondered why the Reapers constantly allow civilizations to build itself up, only to swiftly destroy it. There are many theories as to why. You could think that the Reapers are just using organics as a food source, but arguably there are easier ways to cultivate and sustain organic food than allowing civilizations to constantly evolve and then fall. Rather I think they do it because the Reaper's culture involves preserving the most advanced and valuable species for eternity as Reapers. Reapers are not one single species, but rather a combination of all species ascended into a higher form of life. The best the galaxy has ever produced, all united under one banner.

The Reapers were not just trying to build any ordinary Reaper. They wanted to build a Human Reaper. Not to lead a massive attack against the Citadel, but rather becuase this is the Reaper's culture. They believe Humans are the species with the greatest potential. If they were just trying to build a generic Reaper, they could have used any species. Arguably it would be a lot easier to target something other than human colonies. But they specifically wanted to turn humans into the Reapers. Think about Harbinger's dialogue. He refers to the process of turning humans into genetic paste to fuel the larva's growth as "ascension". Why use that word in particular? Why not call it "assimilation"? Or "consumption"? "Ascension" implies that they are raising humans to be what they consider to be a higher form of life. They see value in humans.

But what about Sovereign? He didn't seem to like organics at all. Why turn them into Reapers. Well I believe that the Reapers may have considered the current organic "crop" to be a failure, not worthy of being turned into Reapers. This could be for a number of reasons. I think it's because the galaxy had a very diverse category of sentient lifeforms, with no one species appearing to be dominant. The Protheans appeared to be the undisputed rulers of the galaxy at the time of their downfall. This is the Reapers idea of the perfect organic race to harvest. One species that follows their predetermined line of technological advancement, rather than a handful of species that all do so at the same time. So the Reapers were all set to just wipe every race out and start from scratch. What changed this? Well humans killed a Reaper. The game often alludes to the idea that by killing a Reaper, we grabbed their attention. To delay the extinction cycle and kill a powerful Reaper in the process would probably interest them. So Harbinger now thinks that humans are worthy of ascension into the ultimate life form.

If you're wondering why they didn't do this to the Protheans, it's because the Prothean Reaper failed. Instead they turned them into the Collectors, so that they would still serve a purpose.

In short; Reapers wanted to create a Human Reaper for cultural reasons, not military strength.

And I don't think this Reaper was a backup plan for Sovereign. It was still far from completion when you encountered it, and apparently the Collectors have been harvesting since before Sovereign died. Harbinger has some other way of reaching the galaxy. I don't think the human Reaper would have attacked the Citadel.

3.) Remember that datapad at the end? The ony with all the data on Harbinger on it? Yeah, I'm pretty sure that was important. And we stopped another Reaper plan. I don;t see what the problem is.

If you really want a plot hole, ask yourself this; why did they all get on the shuttle during the IFF incident?

That is probably the most in-depth and logical explanation of it all i have ever seen

 

[thenoblitt]

I suppose it was lucky that this confusion was immediately followed by the fantastic kick-ass Joker mission, thus momentarily covering up the plot hole

The whole "overlord" comment made by Joker had me in tears.

 

[Jak2364]

3. well....isnt that what the 2nd in most trilogies is for? to raise our knowledge of the many parts of the game in preparation for the final part?

 

[thenoblitt]

Has anyone considered the possibility that Shepard is a reaper? At the start when you see him getting rebuilt: some of that robotic stuff could be from Sovereign,maybe Cerberus got hold of some of his remains, kinda reverse engineered him (Reapers are formed from sentient beings so why not rebuild a human with parts from a Reaper) and created Reaper Shepard.
This links in to why Wilson was concerned about you at the start,he was worried about the lengths Cerberus would go to stop the Reapers and tried to stop/circumvent that from happening.

p.s sorry this is my 1st post and it seems more of a conspiracy thoery now that I read it through

Because they are making a new book where they do exactly that but im pretty sure its set after mass effect 2 and involves a guy from one of the other books

 

[spartan231490]

1) They are the ones generating the mass effect field in the galactic core, if they had to move it, they could. Also, they are being directly controled by "harbinger" a reaper. So since the reapers created the mass relays, if they had to, they could reprogram the one in the galactic core to take them somewhere other than the omega 4 relay

2) We don't know anything about the reaper modivations, why bother allowing galactic civilation to grow and then extinguish it after a set amount of time. The modivations of the reapers will either be explained in ME3, or they will stick with what soverign said which boiled down to, we are so much smarter than you that you cant understand our modivations. Im assuming that ME3 will explain the reapers modivations and in so doing, will also explain why they were building a human reaper. Maybe they saved soverigns data and they are building him a new body, idk.

3) And in ME2, you're right, we accomplish almost nothing. you expand the backstory of the galaxy, and you eliminate the reapers organic allies. The main thing is that you saved a great deal of human lives because the reaper was, as of yet, still very incomplete and needed a lot more humans to finish. I think it may have something to do with giving you more variety in teammate choice when 3 comes around, or maybe we will somehow use what is left of the collectors at the galactic core to prove the existance of the reapers to the council. Maybe it was just a big excuse to get you and the council fighting before ME3, i suspect that whatever we did accomplish, will only be found out in ME3.

 

[sgtshock]

I always thought that the Human Reaper was made to replace Sovereign and succeed where he failed, and take another shot at opening the portal to the Citadel for the Reapers to invade. They didn't just make the human reaper to be scary or make themselves more diverse; they were going to use it to re-open the doomsday relay, so when you destroyed it, you did halt their plans. If they didn't need the Citadel relay, and the reapers could just fly to our galaxy, I don't see why Sovereign would go through all the trouble to try to fix it in the first game.

 

[Theron Julius]

1. They didn't destroy the relay because the Illusive man wanted the technology and anyway I think it's supposed to be implied that relays are virtually indestructible, otherwise they wouldhave just blown up the relay that led to the Rachni during the Rachni Wars.

2. The Human-Reaper seemed like either a hasty decision or a poor decision. But it's possible that they were going to use it to assault the citadel again. Considering that a single reaper can take on a fleet and that Collector ships are known to be very powerful, another assault on the citadel could turn out differently. So, I think that it's existence is justified enough... Still seems corny.

3. The end was good enough for a sequel in a trilogy. They have to leave holes for the next game to fill. And anyway, you stopped the collectors from continuing abductions, killed a reaper (Which is good considering how damn powerful a single one can be), and secured powerful technology (if you're evil. Didn't get that one if you're good). In the long run you did a decent amount good for the galaxy.

 

[deleted_scifidownbeat]

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[Kyman102]

Okay... Since I'm as big a fanboy of the series as Yahtzee is of Silent Hill 2 and Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, I'm going to jump in and answer what my theories are in response to some of these. A lot of these theories came from TVTropes, especially in regard to the human reaper, so bare with me. I'll only address the latter two of the issues, since I admit you've got me there with the whole Omega 4 Relay thing.

The Human Reaper:
Okay, first of all, we didn't see any organic parts of Sovereign. However, we hardly saw the intimate details of that and the derelict Reaper you visit in ME2. Given the size difference between the Human Reaper and Sovereign, I think it's reasonable to assume that what we saw was the core. EDI does say that it would likely take millions more humans to fully 'grow' that Reaper to maturity, presumably gaining itself the squid-like shell of its kin. As for why they need one, since there's a lot of them, another theory I liked stated that the reapers aren't killing for the lulz, they're harvesting and recouping their losses.

The theory is that the Reapers are engaged in a massive war with some other species, and do a drive-by of the Milky Way every 50,000 years in order to gather resources and, ideally, grow more of themselves. If just half of today's human population was gathered and used to grow a reaper... Well, let's assume that one reaper takes, oh, 20,000,000 humans to grow. Given today's population of six BILLION, even if the Reapers only gather about 3/4 of the population, that calculates out to 225 shiny new Reapers. Probably not much compared to how many were seen in the end video, but that's still no small amount.

3. Accomplishments
Well, what we accomplished depends. When I was playing, I was under the assumption that ALL of the Collectors were located in that massive base, which was either blown up or cleared of all life for study. So, effectivly, we not only saved humanity from the Collectors, but Shepard and his/her team also eliminated all the Collectors, perminantly.

And in the process managed to spurn all the hibernating Reapers to wake up and enter the galaxy en mass, when it took an entire fleet to deal with one.

Whoops...