Smilomaniac said:
uro vii said:
I think you and I play games a bit differently. I like the small stuff, the interactions between characters and sometimes the philosophical implications. Rarely ever the epic stuff, so I see the Reapers as a token bad guy more than anything particularly insidious or worthwhile. It's why I really dislike Star Wars and love Star Trek.
I get the feeling you're more into the big picture stuff, or at least more than I am.
So I'd like to ask you what gave you the sense that there was/is more behind the Reapers?
It doesn't have to be anything factual, it can be your own ideas. My impression is that the writers put a lot of big words on them, so that we ourselves would give some significance on to them, that they themselves couldn't or didn't have to.
A quick recap, so that I'm sure I remember their origin/purpose:
Ancient race Leviathan made a Reaper or more of them; They gained sentience and rebelled, then wiped out almost all of the Leviathans.
From there, the Reapers then either admitted to themselves that they were a menace and gained the insight that it might happen again and vowed to stop any future occurence of synthetic rebellion and galaxywide genocide, by doing just that, apart from the primitive/undeveloped races.
That's the gist that I get, at least. Am I right?
I tend to be that way too, focus on the big rather than the small. Characterization only goes so far for me.
To me, lore and background info is more important than several other things in a story, because it exists as a constant backdrop to explain what is going on. Its a literary tool, and a damn good one if used correctly. Proper lore can explain something that a writer screwed up on, cuz hey all of us are human and we make mistakes.
The reapers were inspired by lovecraftian cthulu mythos horror. It comes in two forms, first in their appearance with the cuttlefish tentacles, second in the dialogue with Sovereign.
"There is a realm of existence so far beyond your comprehension you cannot even imagine it". The idea of something existing that is beyond comprehension. Some people call this lazy writing, but I think its something amazing. Too often people draw up diagrams and charts to explain every type of villain and that there is no way a villain can exist outside of the predetermined set of rules. But they can, what if what a villain wants is simply beyond your comprehension? The reapers are like this.
Its one thing to be like the reapers, but quite another to believe what they say. Sovereign does give you info to go on. He states "We have no beginning, we have no end, we are eternal" this is extremely unlikely, going on the info we had at the time. He then states that "we are the end of everything" referring to their role as harvesters. As players, its really on us to believe what he says or not. I personally didn't believe that they had no beginning or end. They are machines. They had to comes from somewhere or something. It is important the reapers served some purpose, and I think it was important the reapers explain themselves to the player in some way. Its a kind of payoff I think players deserve. When i think about something without a beginning or end. A question pops into my head... why
do anything at all? In a limitless existence, what does anything really matter? Especially when considering the other things around you (the galaxy) are not eternal. Why do anything? Sovereign says it himself..
"Reaper, a name given to us by the protheans to give voice to their destruction, in the end what they chose to call us is irrelevant, we simply are."
"we simply are..." If that is true, then I see no reason to do anything other that simply exist since nothing you do will matter in the infinite scheme of things. I didn't believe it. I thought they existed for some other grand purpose, but I think the Dark Energy plot was a bit better.
In the Dark Matter or Dark Energy plot, the reapers were supposed be trying to stop the galaxy from being swallowed by the Dark energy. Biotics was supposed to be the way to stop it. The reapers were going to probably create an Asari reaper but the cycle was briefly stopped by the prothean signal to the keepers in the citadel. Sovereign then went about its plans in ME1 only to be stopped by humans. This gave the reapers a new direction, perhaps humans were the long sought after key with the biotic potential to stop the dark energy. Thus the events of ME2 where the collectors were making a human reaper. As stated earlier in the thread, more of the plot would have needed to be expanded on. It was not, it was taken out of the game in favor of the tech singularity, but some parts were still left in. At the end of the game in ME3, you would confront Harbinger instead of the star child. He would tell you the purpose of the what they (the reapers) were trying to do all along. He would then state that this was the first time they ever had any serious resistance (depending on if you unite the galaxy or not) and state that you are actually hastening the destruction of everything by resisting them. He would then present you with choices...
1) upon understanding the gravity of the situation, choose to give yourself (and the rest of humanity) to harbinger and they create the human reaper. It stops the spread of dark energy saving the galaxy. The reapers shut down and the war is over.
2) Tell Harbinger to screw himself and that you will find another way to save the galaxy. Fight him with either losing or winning. If you win the fate of the galaxy is ???
Ultimately I think Karpyshyn had a good outline but when he moved on to other projects and eventually left Bioware, the team just did what they wanted to do.
