Why do you think The Reapers did it?

[idarkphoenixi]

I just took the obvious route and figured it was for their own sustainability.

Non of that matters however because according to Casey Hudson, it's because Casper the ghost told them to do it.

 

[Innegativeion]

You missed a parody opportunity...

Harbinger: So what are we doing in 50,000 years, Catalyst?

Catalyst: The same thing we do every 50,000 years Pinky Harbinger: Try to wipe out all organic life!

♪ It's the Reaper and the Kid, the Reaper and the Kid. One is a program, the other's a killer aphid. They do their Reaper work, and try wiping out Earth. They're the Reaper, the Reaper and the Kid Kid Kid Kid Kid ♪

Gold pure gold.

Someone needs to fully write and perform this song.

...............

Anyway, the explanation that "they farm us like vegetables" is the most appealing to me. They're simply, as EDI elegantly put it interested in "nothing but self-preservation". Only extremely intelligent, advanced races are suitable to construct a reaper, as Harbinger's comments about your squad in ME2 suggests, so they hibernate for 50000 years to ensure there's always a fresh crop.

Maybe they were made to combat synthetics(which is still stupid) as starchild(who is still stupid) suggests, originally, but I REFUSE under any circumstances to believe the catalyst has any power over the reapers without the crucible, Harbinger is definitively the real leader in my headcanon. The reapers do their own thing for selfish reasons now.

I also believe Harbinger uses the "elevate you to evolutionary pinnacle" thing as justification and psychological warfare. Though he may believe it himself, it's kind of like saying to a chicken,

"You'd be much more useful as food for a human than in the life you lead now."

 

[Smeggs]

Yo Dawg i heard you don't wanna be killed by synthetics, so i made some synthetics to kill you every 50k years, so you won't be killed by synthetics.

Soo... Before we got to know this, what do you think was The Reapers reason to do it.

Mine is thad they did it to survive. They needed technology (or something (giant plothole)) like we need food to survive, and then they goes on sleeping for 50k years. They at us like we look at cattle. I believed this because of the use of words like harvest and cycle.

BECAUSE. THEY. COULD.

There was literally no doubt in my mind that the entire reason the Reapers were eradicating life every 50k years was because they did not want any other race to advance far enough to be able to defeat and replace them.

The nations that composed the Reapers had virtually (no robot pun intended) ascended to godhood. The only problem being that they chose to be malevolant gods. So, they didn't want any of the "mortals" trying to usurp their seat of power.

"You exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it."

That would have been a perfectly acceptable reason for doing what they did in my opinion.

 

[TheOneBearded]

For the lulz of course. Life gets kind of boring when you're basically immortal. Unless they have a giant PC or Xbox that we don't know about, the Reapers have nothing to do but sleep.

 

[Innegativeion]

BECAUSE. THEY. COULD.

There was literally no doubt in my mind that the entire reason the Reapers were eradicating life every 50k years was because they did not want any other race to advance far enough to be able to defeat and replace them.

The nations that composed the Reapers had virtually (no robot pun intended) ascended to godhood. The only problem being that they chose to be malevolant gods. So, they didn't want any of the "mortals" trying to usurp their seat of power.

"You exist because we allow it. You will die because we demand it."

Sad part is that this motivation was in the original script. They harvested to remain the apex predators of the galaxy. The original script also had an extended dialogue with Harbinger himself instead of the fucking starchild.

Seriously, this wreaks of executive-meddling so bad it's burning my eyes.

 

[thespyisdead]

if they are half synthetic, then could it be that some really ancient race just spread across the galaxy so extensively, that it was starting to over crowd, so the only solution they could come up with was the reapers, so in that extent, as synthetics, they are following orders.

since that race also built the mass relays and possibly the citadel, the race decided to leave false info on the motivation of reapers, and also possibly the plan for the crucible, so that future races have a chance to see the burden that this ancient race has suffered through.

to complete this task, this race would have needed to build fleet of organic synthetic things, and what better way to do that than use the people of your galaxy as the galaxy is already bursting at it's seems. this would have of course started a galaxy wide war. but as the fleet grew larger, the resistance grew smaller.

as a final precaution, this race made sure that an optimum amount of races and people in those races was left, they programmed into them that information, and made sure that their race would always survive, trough similar programming.

once this was done, they destroyed any possible data on this galaxy wide genocide, sent the reapers into their dormant state for 50k years, and wiped their own memory of such an incident, so that the galaxy would never know of this deed.




this is my view on the reapers motivation, and i pulled it all out of my rear, in a sleepy state, so it may have some fallacies

 

[Potato Dragon]

I belive Bethesda programmed them but forgot to test for bugs so instead of defending us as expected they kill us.

that or space Jesus is retarded.

 

[Smeggs]

BECAUSE. THEY. COULD.

There was literally no doubt in my mind that the entire reason the Reapers were eradicating life every 50k years was because they did not want any other race to advance far enough to be able to defeat and replace them.

The nations that composed the Reapers had virtually (no robot pun intended) ascended to godhood. The only problem being that they chose to be malevolant gods. So, they didn't want any of the "mortals" trying to usurp their seat of power.

"You exist because we allow it. You will die because we demand it."

Sad part is that this motivation was in the original script. They harvested to remain the apex predators of the galaxy. The original script also had an extended dialogue with Harbinger himself instead of the fucking starchild.

Seriously, this wreaks of executive-meddling so bad it's burning my eyes.

My corneas were already seared away by the pretty bullshit lights from the Crucible.

Capthca: "Toe-curling" Damn right, it was that bad, wasn't it, Captcha?

 

[DEAD34345]

I originally thought they were going with some kind of chaos VS order thing. Whenever a chaotic organic civilisation rises up to the point where it could do real damage to the galaxy, they annihilate it, preserving only a reaper created from them. In this way they could stop the universe from ever being screwed up by those pesky organics that keep trying to blow each other up.

 

[SajuukKhar]

The Reapers harvested all life in the galaxy every 50,000 years to add new races thought patterns into their own collective because there was an almost uncontrollable build-up of dark energy in the galaxy that was threatening to cause all the suns to detonate thus destroying all habitable worlds in the galaxy and the original Reaper race couldn't find a solution on their own.

 

[IrritatingSquirrel]

They explain it - It's to get rid of (and preserve in reaper form) advanced life to allow less advanced life room to grow
-edit- supposedly anyway. Doesn't seem to fit the other two games

 

[Nieroshai]

It's not to defend organics from synthetics per se, it's to prevent the eradicaton of ALL life by a galactic Skynet incident by getting rid of spacefaring species capable of building AI. No one seems to get that distinction. To the Stargazer, the sum total of all life is more important than the few species capable of oppressing synthetics.

 

[SajuukKhar]

It's not to defend organics from synthetics per se, it's to prevent the eradicaton of ALL life by a galactic Skynet incident by getting rid of spacefaring species capable of building AI. No one seems to get that distinction. To the Stargazer, the sum total of all life is more important than the few species capable of oppressing synthetics.

No they DO get the distinction, they just want to ignore it for hate fuel.

 

[IrritatingSquirrel]

It's not to defend organics from synthetics per se, it's to prevent the eradicaton of ALL life by a galactic Skynet incident by getting rid of spacefaring species capable of building AI. No one seems to get that distinction. To the Stargazer, the sum total of all life is more important than the few species capable of oppressing synthetics.

No they DO get the distinction, they just want to ignore it for hate fuel.

Raging at bioware does seem to have become uncomfortably popular now.

 

[ablac]

They say their purpose is to destroy advanced life before it destroys itself to keep the galaxy habitable as if they did not then synthetics which would destroy the organics would inevitably be created. They destroy everything so that everything is not taken over by the synthetics. I would like to ask where they came from and why they choose to do tis being synthetic themselves. I believe that highly advanced organics from another galaxy made them as they viewed the cycle of this galaxy after wiping out synthetics which had already destroyed organic life. They restarted organic life and created the reapers and mass effect realays as a solution until the cycle could be broken as either cooperation galaxy wide, which would be able to also withstand synthetics, or an alliance of organics and synthetics, which makes the reapers obsolete, would be necessary to destroy the reapers. This owuld be better as far as im concerned but it makes the final choice senseless as it would make breaking the cycle needless as my idea is that by beating the reapers the galaxy proves it can withstand its own self-destructive ways. This is all my idea which is why it sucks but I always felt that because the reapers are synthetic they needed a creator and thus a purpose set by organics as their purpose as stated is a form of warped benevolence.

 

[Riki Darnell]

I always thought they did it because it was their job to do it. Like asking "why does a toaster make toast". Because that's what it was designed to do. After the 2nd game I kinda always thought of the Reapers as, well....angels.

 

[SajuukKhar]

The Reapers harvested all life in the galaxy every 50,000 years to add new races thought patterns into their own collective because there was an almost uncontrollable build-up of dark energy in the galaxy that was threatening to cause all the suns to detonate thus destroying all habitable worlds in the galaxy and the original Reaper race couldn't find a solution on their own.

This right here is the original plot found in the original leaked scripts, this is the REAL, original, reason Bioware had though of for why the Reapers did what they did.

 

[bobfish92]

Trying to obtain genetic perfection for every environment and to reproduce - Aside from the Asari, when a civilisation becomes advanced, how much more do they evolve? (Well, they keep evolving but lack of natural selection means its pointless.) So, once a bunch of species reach their genetic limit - I dunno, say, every 50k years, Reapers absorb them and allow new species to advance and take over. Its clear that the reapers believe themselves to be technologically superior, but not genetically - The human reaper proves this. As for "why" I'd guess the same reason libaries of knowledge exist. The reapers or their creators either did or thought they had discovered EVERY technological advancement. They had made the Citadel, the Mass Relays and so on. There was nothing else (important) to be made or discovered, however, on uncivilised planets new genetics and species thrived, changing all the time - But they took to so long to reach maturation that the cycles were born.

So the creatures who discovered (or thought they had) everything of importance technologically and raised themselves to godhood with it saw how little they knew of societies and genetics and in their cold, technological way they began to absorb and preserve it all in their library fleet, letting the course of nature do their lab-work, as everyone is just lab-rats.

No grand scheme, no evil notions, meerly a man-like mind craving research and the expansion of knowledge after it believes all else achieved. (As for the Protheans, they saw in them theirselves - Singular, technological and who researched primitives so the Reapers did the (ahem) genetic work on them after preserving their code, as they saw a certain amount of their own traits in them, letting them be their "librarians".

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

Yo Dawg i heard you don't wanna be killed by synthetics, so i made some synthetics to kill you every 50k years, so you won't be killed by synthetics.

Soo... Before we got to know this, what do you think was The Reapers reason to do it.

Mine is thad they did it to survive. They needed technology (or something (giant plothole)) like we need food to survive, and then they goes on sleeping for 50k years. They at us like we look at cattle. I believed this because of the use of words like harvest and cycle.

BECAUSE. THEY. COULD.

There was literally no doubt in my mind that the entire reason the Reapers were eradicating life every 50k years was because they did not want any other race to advance far enough to be able to defeat and replace them.

The nations that composed the Reapers had virtually (no robot pun intended) ascended to godhood. The only problem being that they chose to be malevolant gods. So, they didn't want any of the "mortals" trying to usurp their seat of power.

"You exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it."

That would have been a perfectly acceptable reason for doing what they did in my opinion.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand /thread

I guess based on the 'Reaper Embryo' from the end of ME2 they could also have made the 'harvest as a form of reproduction' angle work, but tbh I was never left unsatisfied by Sovereigns explanation of the Reapers, vague as it was, in ME1.

Thinking about it when I think of all the best villains in media I struggle to think of any who's motivations can't be summed up in a simple sentence, if they even have clear motivations at all. The interesting part is most often how they try and achieve their ends, rather than why. Would Scar from The Lion King have been a better villain if Disney had tried to make him all complex and sympathetic, rather than just Mufasa's jealous little brother? No, because the story's not about him. That, I think, was the crucial misstep in ME3. The Reapers were fine when they were just the classic ambiguous threat that must be overcome, while Saren and The Illusive Man did all the heavy lifting in regards to motivations, because at the end of the day, it was Shepard's story, not theirs.

 

[Innegativeion]

No they DO get the distinction, they just want to ignore it for hate fuel.

[sarcasm] Clearly it has nothing to do with grand number of people who successfully brokered peace between the galaxy's most powerful synthetic race and the galaxy's loudest synthetic-haters,

the very handy alternative of just destroying synthetics rather than killing the organics they were supposedly built to protect,

the fact that without any explanation of the nature of its existence, many interpret the starchild as an AI since only VIs have been holographic like in the series thus far barring transmissions,

EDI's existence,

the purpose presented by the starchild is FAR less complicated than the reapers suggested, though as it seems no one thinks it makes any sense, maybe they were right after all.

[/sarcasm]