Why do you think The Reapers did it?

[SajuukKhar]

I'm not sure how best to phrase it...

Your defense of the reapers sounds (not you, your defense) to me just like defending a genocidal racist saying "Well who's to say black people/jews/homosexuals won't kill all white people eventually. So killing them all is really a logical, good thing."

There is no proof that that will happen, in the game or out of the game. This is racist bullshit.
A "it might happen" is not enough to justify genocide, no matter how many people seem willing to do exactly that, albeit about matters in a video game.

I am baffled.

Actually the Reapers killing is non discriminatory, except maybe on a technological tier level.

Its more like "humans are polluting the earth and are refusing to even attempt to stop so someone is killing them ALL so that The Earth doesn't get destroyed"

The Reapers dont really care about race, or gender, or species its kill em all.

It may not be conclusive, but I still have more evidence to support my claim than he apparently does. If I was allowed to argue with him, using the Geth and EDI as an example, and he came back with examples of Synthetics that could not be reasoned with in previous cycles, that may have been enough... just. But no, he just justifies the slaughter as necessary with nothing to back him up other than 'because it is', and Shepard is supposed to just accept that, after a 2 minute conversation with the guy, opposed to the years previously of seeing evidence to the contrary?

No, just no. There is no fucking way my Shepard would just lie down and take that. My Shepard has always made peace where others had accepted war as inevitable. He has never given up. He has always believed the best in people where others thought him naive; and most importantly, he has always been right. So now the stakes are higher than ever he wouldn't just let The Catalyst run the show. Even if the Catalyst is right, Shepard would at least demand an explanation. But no, instead Shepard becomes entirely useless in the last sequence, just a tool for The Catalyst's 'solution', and the whole thing stinks.

I agree completely that he needs more evidence, and that you should have been able to argue with him.

They should have put like holoscreens in the background with videos playing of synthetics destroying organic races from across the various cycles, or something.

 

[SnakeoilSage]

The Reapers are a response to a calamity that happened on their homeworld. At the time, the final episode of a great trilogy had been released, and the ending was impotent and a huge brick wall to the road trip the previous games provided. So the people rose up into a genocidal army, eventually evolving into giant robots that arrive every 50,000 years to force the galaxy to change its ending. So far, all they've gotten are a few half-ass offers to provide some extra closure. The human race is the galaxy's way of saying "hey, we can do a better job and give you an awesome ending!" but the Reapers by now had become so jaded and cynical that they weren't gonna buy it. They decided to just make the humans into a Reaper so that we wouldn't have to deal with lame endings to great creative properties, especially after witnessing us suffer through Godfather III, Revenge of the Sith, and Mass Effect 3.

 

[MomoElektra]

Actually the Reapers killing is non discriminatory, except maybe on a technological tier level.

So, it's not discriminatory except maybe it is?

Its more like "humans are polluting the earth and are refusing to even attempt to stop so someone is killing them ALL so that The Earth doesn't get destroyed"

Like that's better? Honestly?

The Reapers dont really care about race or gender, its kill em all.

Racism doesn't need actual races to work. It's enough if someone believes traits can be attributed to race, someone believing people can be divided into races. Like saying all biological life will always develop synthetic life inevitably and synthetic life will always kill all organic life inevitably is not supported by fact but racist fiction. Racist fiction by the bad guys. In the game where you fight the bad guys. Because you're the good guy.

It's not rocket science. Why do you keep defending that ...."logic"?

 

[Elate]

Space child, plot holes, and a wizard. That's why they did it.

 

[SajuukKhar]

Actually the Reapers killing is non discriminatory, except maybe on a technological tier level.

So, it's not discriminatory except maybe it is?

Its more like "humans are polluting the earth and are refusing to even attempt to stop so someone is killing them ALL so that The Earth doesn't get destroyed"

Like that's better? Honestly?

The Reapers dont really care about race or gender, its kill em all.

Racism doesn't need actual races to work. It's enough if someone believes traits can be attributed to race. Like saying all biological life will always develop synthetic life inevitably and synthetic life will always kill all organic life inevitably is not supported by fact but racist fiction. Racist fiction by the bad guys. In the game where you fight the bad guys. Because you're the good guy.

It's not rocket science. Why do you keep defending that ...."logic"?

What I meant to say is that the only thing they do base who they are gonna kill on in their technological level so that they dont end up killing races that aren't far enough along to make AI anywhere soon.
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The word better implies that actions have some intrinsic value that can be measured.

However value is a mental construct of humanity that exists to help our minds cope with the vastness of the universe and the things in it, and value is defined by each individual.

Value of any sort be it, monitory or value in actions, technically doesn't exist, nor does any system we base off of value.

No action can be "better" then any other action, no action can be "worse" then any other, no one can be more good/evil, right/wrong, moral/immoral, ethical/unethical, just/unjust etc. etc. then any other person.

Actions simply are. So technically no it isn't "better", but it isn't any "worse" then letting all organic life be killed of terminally either.
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Racism, as it is normally used, implies a form of hate. I dont think The Reapers hate organics, if anything they probably care for it which is why the actively try to keep it going on for as long as it can.
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I dont think the Reapers kill for any sort of hatred, or morality, or discrimination as we understand it reasons. I think they kill simply because

X amount of life over Y number of years > X amount of life over Z amount of year

with
X = total organic life
Y = number of reapers The Reapers can keep synthetics at bay
Z = how long it would take for synthetics to kill all organic life

 

[Jon Shannow]

When you're Giant Robot Space Squids you don't need a reason

 

[MinimanZombie]

Maybe, where the Reapers come from, they are the weakest link in a force so much more powerful than them. Basically, what if the Reapers have their own versions of Reapers who harvest the Reapers we know. So our Reapers come and harvest the organics when they are at the peak of their cycle. With the highest population and highest intellect, there can be so much potential for more Reapers, thus the Reapers can prepare for their own Reapers. Infact instead of there being a cycle, it could just take a really fucking long time to get to and from the Milky way.

 

[MomoElektra]

What I meant to say is that the only thing they do base who they are gonna kill on in their technological level so that they dont end up killing races that aren't far enough along to make AI anywhere soon.

Yeah and I say that's like killing a person so their grandchild can't ever kill you or chopping off limbs so they can't get infected. It's bullshit. And stupid. And unproductive. There are better alternatives. Much, much better.
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The word better implies that actions have some intrinsic value that can be measured.

However value is a mental construct of humanity that exists to help our minds cope with the vastness of the universe and the things in it, and value is defined by each individual.

Value of any sort be it, monitory or value in actions, technically doesn't exist, nor does any system we base off of Value.

No action can be "better" then any other action, no action can be "worse" then any other, no one can be more good/evil, right/wrong, moral/immoral, ethical/unethical, just/unjust etc. etc. then any other person.

Cop out. You are trying to meta the discussion to avoid the problem.

Actions simply are. So technically no it isn't "better", but it isn't any "worse" then letting all organic life be killed of terminally either.

Q.E.D.

Racism, as it is normally used, implies a form of hate.

No, it doesn't. It usually comes with it, but it is not a necessary component. There is benevolent racism as well.

I dont think The Reapers hate organics, if anything they probably care for it which is why the actively try to keep it going on for as long as it can.

Ah, Sovereign didn't hate organics? Harbinger doesn't?
Yeah, except, no. But kind of irrelevant either way.

I dont think the Reapers kill for any sort of hatred or moral reasons. I think they kill simply because

X amount of life over Y number of years > X amount of life over Z amount of year

with
X = total organic life
Y = number of reapers The Reapers can keep synthetics at bay
Z = how long it would take for synthetics to kill all organic life

Because they suck at logic (it's circular)? Because they accept a flawed premise (there is no evidence for it)?

 

[Grygor]

Now, I'm fine with the Catalyst believing what there can never be harmony between synthetics and organics before, but why am I not allowed to point out to it all the times in the series that I've proved him wrong? Whereuopn he gets on the ringer to Harbinger andsays something along the lines of 'Um, guys, we fucked up. This cycle's gonna be k without us from now on.'

Seriously, why not? Shepard has always had the capacity to be a compelling negotiator. If you played your cards right, Shepard has even been able to talk people (Saren and TIM) out of a state of complete indoctrination and see reason, something that no-one else could do. So why now, when it matters more than ever, am I not allowed to plead the case that I've been building for the past 5 years? Why do I have to just go along with this new character's assertions when I know them to be false?

The thing is, though, what really would be the point of arguing with the Catalyst? It doesn't actually DO anything. It's Shepard who actually activates the Crucible (via your choice at the end), not the Catalyst.

Sure, the Catalyst tells you that it can't activate the Crucible because this unprecedented sequence of events has left it unable to decide on a course of action (to paraphrase) - but my personal interpretation is that the Catalyst is just a shackled AI with delusions of grandeur, completely incapable of actually doing anything, but having convinced itself that it actually controls everything.

 

[SajuukKhar]

snip

Because the Catalyst, who admittedly said HE CANT CHANGE ANYTHING himself, is supposed to change things?

Also what you have them do hmm? sit around in the galaxy as police? what about all the resource problems? what about the fact their need to replenish their number to keep synthetics at bay would eventually cause them to have to harvest organics and thus cause a war with organics, which would probably make them have to kill all organics anyways?

You say "better ways" like there is something that The Reapers could have magically done themselves to prevent war.

They can't, nothing can, violence and war is a inevitability amongst any number of lifeforms that contain individuality and distinction.
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It isn't a cop-out its fact, and I doubt The Reapers, who are over a billion years old, commit their actions based on the same limits as organics have.

There is no avoiding of the problem, The Reapers most likely just commit actions because of math and not because of any sort of moral/ethical reasons.
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Umm I don't remember a part where Sovereign or Harbinger said anything about hating organics, in fact Harbinger kept telling Shepard to stop resisting because he was trying to make his entire species into a uber-god machine/organic hybrid.

Also one does not spend over 1 billion years trying their hardest to keep organic life as a whole alive as long as possible if they hate it.
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It isn't a flawed premise. Lasting peace is a fundamental impossibility amongst individualistic societies, human history has proved that time and time again.

And given Synthetics lack of any need of organics, combined with the inevitability or war, makes a synthetics annihilation of organics sound.

 

[Zeckt]

They wipe us out by giving us some half assed higher meaning reason as an excuse to kill us so they can take our oil and fresh water, or whatever else the alternative is. Just like real life!

 

[renegade7]

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.

ORIGINALLY (though this was ultimately scrapped in favor of the "using organics to build themselves") the Reapers were designed by aliens from another galaxy to prevent the sentient races of the Milky Way from abusing dark matter (element zero was to have been revealed to be a form of dark matter) and creating some sort of supermassive black hole and destroying the universe. Apparently the Milky Way had a very high concentration of the stuff, or something. The Reapers come in and exterminate the sentient races of the galaxy because they are on the cusp of reaching a sort of 'critical mass' with their dark matter use, and need to be eradicated for the safety of the universe.

 

[SajuukKhar]

ORIGINALLY (though this was ultimately scrapped in favor of the "using organics to build themselves") the Reapers were designed by aliens from another galaxy to prevent the sentient races of the Milky Way from abusing dark matter (element zero was to have been revealed to be a form of dark matter) and creating some sort of supermassive black hole and destroying the universe. Apparently the Milky Way had a very high concentration of the stuff, or something. The Reapers come in and exterminate the sentient races of the galaxy because they are on the cusp of reaching a sort of 'critical mass' with their dark matter use, and need to be eradicated for the safety of the universe.

I dont think them being built by aliens from another galaxy was in the original script.

Also the problem was dark energy was building up over time and The Reapers were harvesting species to add their thought patterns into their collective to find a way to stop it. It wasn't about the species abusing dark energy.

 

[renegade7]

ORIGINALLY (though this was ultimately scrapped in favor of the "using organics to build themselves") the Reapers were designed by aliens from another galaxy to prevent the sentient races of the Milky Way from abusing dark matter (element zero was to have been revealed to be a form of dark matter) and creating some sort of supermassive black hole and destroying the universe. Apparently the Milky Way had a very high concentration of the stuff, or something. The Reapers come in and exterminate the sentient races of the galaxy because they are on the cusp of reaching a sort of 'critical mass' with their dark matter use, and need to be eradicated for the safety of the universe.

I dont think them being built by aliens from another galaxy was in the original script.

Also the problem was dark energy was building up over time and The Reapers were harvesting species to add their thought patterns into their collective to find a way to stop it. It wasn't about the species abusing dark energy.

Ah well I only had a cursory read of it. Thanks for clearing that up.

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

Now, I'm fine with the Catalyst believing what there can never be harmony between synthetics and organics before, but why am I not allowed to point out to it all the times in the series that I've proved him wrong? Whereuopn he gets on the ringer to Harbinger andsays something along the lines of 'Um, guys, we fucked up. This cycle's gonna be k without us from now on.'

Seriously, why not? Shepard has always had the capacity to be a compelling negotiator. If you played your cards right, Shepard has even been able to talk people (Saren and TIM) out of a state of complete indoctrination and see reason, something that no-one else could do. So why now, when it matters more than ever, am I not allowed to plead the case that I've been building for the past 5 years? Why do I have to just go along with this new character's assertions when I know them to be false?

The thing is, though, what really would be the point of arguing with the Catalyst? It doesn't actually DO anything. It's Shepard who actually activates the Crucible (via your choice at the end), not the Catalyst.

Sure, the Catalyst tells you that it can't activate the Crucible because this unprecedented sequence of events has left it unable to decide on a course of action (to paraphrase) - but my personal interpretation is that the Catalyst is just a shackled AI with delusions of grandeur, completely incapable of actually doing anything, but having convinced itself that it actually controls everything.

Well, the Catalyst does also say that he controls the Reapers. So I'd assume from that that he has the capacity to tell them all to fuck off. Admittedly, he provides just as much evidence for this as anything else he fucking says (which would be none). I interpreted his inaction as him needing you to 'prove' (though ending the Reaper threat and destroying the relays) that organics were no longer in need of his guidance.

Of course, if we could just go to Casey Hudson and ask what all of this meant it would make things a lot easier (though not necessarily any less sucky).

 

[MomoElektra]

snip

Because the Catalyst, who admittedly said HE CANT CHANGE ANYTHING himself, is supposed to change things?

Why is he suddenly relevant?

Also what you have them do hmm? sit around in the galaxy as police?

Not killing people would be a start. They seem happy enough waiting in dark space. They could just go back there.
You make it sound as if not-mass-murdering is such a chore...

what about all the resource problems?

You mean like they can't procreate without being mass murders? What to do, what to do... If only they could find a way to justify their murderous ways...

what about the fact their need to replenish their number to keep synthetics at bay would eventually cause them to have to harvest organics and thus cause a war with organics, which would probably make them have to kill all organics anyways?

They are warring with organics already. And they started it, not the organics.
The only synthetic life form in the ME universe capable of and shown willing to kill all organics are the Reapers themselves. How do you ignore that?

You say "better ways" like there is something that The Reapers could have magically done themselves to prevent war.

Yeah, by not declaring war against organics. It's not a difficult concept. Many people manage that just fine.

They can't, nothing can, violence and war is a inevitability amongst any number of lifeforms that contain individuality and distinction.

Ahh... the social darwinist reveals himself at last.
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It isn't a cop-out its fact, and I doubt The Reapers, who are over a billion years old, commit their actions based on the same limits as organics have.

No one said they do. I don't judge the Reapers. I judge people like you who somehow find it in themselves to justify the actions of those genocidal racists.

There is no avoiding of the problem, The Reapers most likely just commit actions because of math and not because of any sort of moral/ethical reasons.

Maybe they just do it for themselves? It's much more likely, considering how they procreate. They are not benevolent. They are predators. Managing their life stock.
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Umm I don't remember a part where Sovereign or Harbinger said anything about hating organics, in fact Harbinger kept telling Shepard to stop resisting because he was trying to make his entire species into a uber-god machine/organic hybrid.

I don't believe you don't remember since you quoted relevant dialogue in other threads.

Also one does not spend over 1 billion years trying their hardest to keep organic life as a whole alive as long as possible if they hate it.

You mention this as if it were fact that they try to keep organic life as a whole alive - to the benefit of organic life. Only space kid mentions that and he is not a reliable person. He has an agenda. I wonder why you believe him. You mention up post that the Reapers have no other means to procreate but to slaughter millions. Them keeping some organic life alive for the next cycle could just as well be simple husbandry.
But you'd rather believe SpaceHitler. Well, it's your choice...

It isn't a flawed premise. Lasting peace is a fundamental impossibility amongst individualistic societies, human history has proved that time and time again.

No, it hasn't. But I guess you would think that.

And given Synthetics lack of any need of organics, combined with the inevitability or war, makes a synthetics annihilation of organics sound.

We don't kill all we don't need, why should they?

 

[DustyDrB]

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.

It was? Ugh...I get the feeling that everyone who read the leaked scripts and complained were really trolls trying to get BioWare to replace it with a much shittier ending. Fucking leaks, man. What is up with this industry not being able to keep their games locked down before release?

 

[Xpheyel]

My figuring was that the Reapers were the long-discarded and now fatally malfunctioning tools of a long gone post-singularity race. The Reapers don't seem to be capable of advancing. Even if they only reap for 300 years out of every 100,000, the oldest reaper sample we know of is 37,000,000 year old. That's at least 111,000 years of activity, mostly war. During which time they don't appear to have changed meaningfully from their 37,000,000 year old ancestor.

Meanwhile the Turians are able to adapt their weapon systems in less than two and scale it down to fit in a frigate to boot. Working from Sovereign's shattered remains and observations in one battle.

That's why I find the Catalyst plot of ME3 a bit irritating. In ME1, it sure seemed like they NEEDED to open the Citadel relay, both to invade and to control the relay network (according to Vigil). Which is an incalculable strategic advantage. Even in ME2, they were trying to build a new Reaper in the Milky Way, probably just in order to try the same plan again. ME3 appears to retcon that, and the timescale needed to reap as they manage to do a pretty good number on the galaxy in short order.

 

[SajuukKhar]

snip

I find it funny you try to make the point they should just stop but dont even attempt to provide any means in which the Reapers could protect the galaxy without killing everyone.
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Because The Catalyst controls The Reapers and thus would be the being who determines why they do what they do, and also determines if there are any possible options of NOT killing everything that they could use?
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And you have yet to provide an sort of means of protecting the Galaxy without The Reapers killing everyone. So them sitting in Dark space helps no one in the long term.
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Well considering The Reapers are giant spaceships, each made up of a different race, and I have yet to see any sort of reproductive organs on any of them, and given that EDI in ME2 states the human-reaper is most likely the way in which they procreate....... I would say they pretty much can't reproduce without killing organics.
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And the fact that The Geth made peace with organics and wanted to kill The Reapers doesn't prove that they wont go genocidal in the future.

Trying to take one example of peace as "BECAUSE THEY MADE PEACE THE PEACE WILL LAST FOREVER AND NO OTHER SYNTHETICS WILL BE MADE OR TRY TO KILL ALL ORGANICS" is flawed as its very core

Secondly it would actually be The Organics who originally started the war because if organics didn't make synthetics the Reapers would have never had to destroy them to prevent the synthetics from killing everything.
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And yet not doing so means that eventually synthetics will be built and they will kill all organic life in the galaxy forever. the reapers killing of only a handful of organic life so all other organic life to live allows for significantly more organic life to live in the long run.
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No, that's just fact based off of humanities past. I dont subscribe to any real particular philosophical belief system.
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Except they aren't racist, and you have yet to prove they are.
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That is an assumption not based on anything presented in the game. Alll we can use is what is said in-game which is that they kill some organic life to allow organic life as a whole live.

We could be sitting here all day saying "well they really do it to procreate" or "they really do it because they just like destroying stuff" etc. et.c but that gets no one anywhere and none of those are supported by the game.
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Except I haven't. All Sovereign and Harbinger said were that they control organic evolution, want to help humanity ascend to a higher being of existence, and that synthetics will fuck over all organic life if they dont kill off some organic life.

Nothing that they said anywhere was "we do this because we hate organics"
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The Catalyst is the most reliable person we have on the subject of The Reapers. His agenda is the same as the Reapers, and there is no reason for him to lie to Shepard at the end.

The only reason I see not to believe him is because the game didn't give you the closure you wanted and thus you need a reason to cause more Bioware hate.
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Really? human history hasn't proved lasting peace is impossible?

Open up a history book kid, look at all the instances were peace was made. Now put those into two lists, one detailing how many lasted forever, and how many eventually failed.

I will save you the time and do it for you

Time peace has lasted forever Times peace eventually failed
None All of them
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Because they aren't us, and aren't held under the same logic or thought patters we have.

If organics attack them over and over, which given natural organic intolerance will be a lot, The geth may eventually deice getting their people killed time and time again by organics isn't worth it anymore and just kill them all.

 

[chadachada123]

We don't kill all we don't need, why should they?

Because they have no limits on need. Anything and everything can be broken down into simple resources for use.

Take a cow for example. Organics look at a cow, they see a source of meat, milk, and leather. They know that if they kill all the cows, they can't use them as a continued resource. So they kill what they need, and keep the rest alive to produce more cows for continued need.

Synthetics look at a cow, they see the exact same thing they see when they look at anything else. Basic materials; oxygen, hydrogen, calcium, etc. Why should they bother with the effort of keeping cows alive? So they harvest them all, and the cow goes extinct.

But, apparently, the Reapers are an exception to the synthetic rule. For some reason. They can cull organisms for resources and the "survival" of the galaxy, but other synthetics wouldn't be able to do this task, nor would organics that rise to the challenge.

snip

(Just quoting you, because I'm interested in your counter. What makes the Reapers so special in this respect?)