- Location
- Dual citizen of SV&SB
Say a fic that did tht once. Then the story revolved around the humans and their less than stellar relations with the yahg.
Shepard Quest Mk V, Base of Operations (ME/MCU)
- Thread starter Esbilon
- Start date
Van Ropen
Angry, angry about elves.
Since when does flying to the Alpha Relay take six months? I thought it took six months to fly from the Bahak system to nearest one with a Relay, which they were forced to do once the Alpha Relay was destroyed.
- Location
- Lake superior, Minoc
Think i should add something. It's not the challenge or how hard anything the story over comes that has me drawn here.
It's the interaction and the action / reaction to ever thing shepherd is doing and how it changed the world around her. The omake's on the side, the training with family, Meeting the N7's and giving them decent gear. Our blue genius out there cracking history open. Little kasumi with a save home life, but all ready showing her natural stealth.
The slow shifting of cerbrs as they see hope to points in the future.
What other bits pop up effected? Wrex show up some day? After learning how working for you gets the best toys.
Some Specter decides they need to best for a suicide op and goes to revy with a bag o money?
Or whatnot.
It's the interaction and the action / reaction to ever thing shepherd is doing and how it changed the world around her. The omake's on the side, the training with family, Meeting the N7's and giving them decent gear. Our blue genius out there cracking history open. Little kasumi with a save home life, but all ready showing her natural stealth.
The slow shifting of cerbrs as they see hope to points in the future.
What other bits pop up effected? Wrex show up some day? After learning how working for you gets the best toys.
Some Specter decides they need to best for a suicide op and goes to revy with a bag o money?
Or whatnot.
...
You would be absolutely right there.
It would in fact take significantly less time.
End of ME2 - All the Reapers awaken and head to the Milky Way
Short time later Arrival happens and the Reapers are already at the milky way.
That only makes it worse.
Van Ropen
Angry, angry about elves.
Can't we just say the Reapers awakening happened earlier? That makes sense narratively too, since Sovereign was about to summon them all to the Citadel - I'd imagine they were awake for that. He died, they all started heading for the galaxy. Makes more sense than them hanging out for two years doing nothing.
As for why they didn't do that earlier...needed a signal from the Citadel to wake them up?
- Location
- Budapest, Hungary
We wont crubstomp the Reapers, even if we expand exponetially.
In Canon the Reapers lost due of Deus Ex Machina. (Catalyst did LET Shepard win after all)
Here we might able win the war conventionally.
Our time will be barely enough for the Citadel to reach the level of the Protheans, who were not able to win gainst the Reapers.
Reapers are smart (if not a bit genre-blind) and can be awfuly subtle with the indotrination.
They are scary even if we can match them in firepower.
In Canon the Reapers lost due of Deus Ex Machina. (Catalyst did LET Shepard win after all)
Here we might able win the war conventionally.
Our time will be barely enough for the Citadel to reach the level of the Protheans, who were not able to win gainst the Reapers.
Reapers are smart (if not a bit genre-blind) and can be awfuly subtle with the indotrination.
They are scary even if we can match them in firepower.
This was a plothole of sorts to be honest. In ME1 it was implied that it would take the reapers a long time to arrive to the galaxy using normal FTL, which is why they NEEDED the citadel relay. And then suddenly in ME2, it only takes them 2 years to fly to the galaxy using normal FTL. Makes no sense. I guess we could argue that reaching the galaxy using normal FTL required them to use up much of their stored energy or something, weakening them or somesuch. Basically there should be some reason why the reapers were so insistent on using the citadel relay, when we know it takes just a couple of years for them to arrive without using any relays.
I really like the idea that they are just set in their ways.
We know the Reapers have been at this for at least a billion years. At fifty thousand years a cycle that is over twenty thousand cycles.
After that many repetitions falling into the trap of continuing to peruse the same old plan even after it's failed is perfectly understandable. Especially since, from what I understand having not played the relevant DLC, they decided the cycle was the best way to fulfill their mission.
Sure. And heck using the citadel makes sense. It allows them to instantly arrive at the center of power, indoctrinate all leaders and gain access to information about basically every species. Citadel also apparently controls the Mass Relay network, so the reapers can basically turn the relay network on/off at will once they have the citadel. That combined with stagnation means it makes perfect sense that the reapers would go with what works and has worked for millions of years.
Except theres a problem. This time, it did NOT work. Thanks to the Protheans, the citadel relay did not activate when Sovereign sent the signal. They may have stagnated, but I would expect them to be smart enough to react when something like this happens. Though I guess you could argue that the rest of the reapers were waiting to see if Sovereign could fix the problem by using Saren&Geth to gain access to the Citadel. And to be fair, Sovereigns plan ALMOST worked.
I would say my main issue is wondering why Sovereign was left alone? I mean if it only takes 2 years, why did the reapers not send say a small group of 5 reapers to help? Sovereign plus 5 other "sovereigns" would easily have curbstomped the Citadel forces with a surprise attack and opened the relay. I mean Sovereign discovered that the keeper signal was not working quite a while ago, so why did he not get any reinforcements.
Ofcourse, maybe thats the solution to the balance issue? Maybe you could say that in this quest, the rest of the reapers did send Sovereign a small force to help in activating the Citadel Relay and Revy is faced with more than just 1 reaper.
meianmaru
The Devourer of Fiction
Headcanon: The Reapers started immediately moving with the more conventional FTL after they noticed that something was wrong with the Citadel. They still kept trying to use it, because it would have allowed them to arrive instantly and decapitate the galactic head of governments as well as deactivate the relays. After that was not option, they just kept moving and finally arrived in ME3 (and would have arrived somewhat earlier, if not for Shepard again slowing them down in the Arrival).
Also Headcanon: The Citadel is not the Catalyst. It means a sapient being that would be sacrificed in the Crucible to become an ascended dark energy/mass being that could fight the Reapers and start expotential evolution in both power and technology with its enhanced mind and near-immortal state of being. See, Bioware? Its not so hard to come up with anything that is better than your ending.
Also Headcanon: The Citadel is not the Catalyst. It means a sapient being that would be sacrificed in the Crucible to become an ascended dark energy/mass being that could fight the Reapers and start expotential evolution in both power and technology with its enhanced mind and near-immortal state of being. See, Bioware? Its not so hard to come up with anything that is better than your ending.
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Not necessarily. There is a thing, I'm sure it has a name but I'll be damned if I can think of it, similar to the sunk cost fallacy where people will continue to try and fix something long past the point where it's fixable. Like the classic example of a pilot who rides an out of control plane into the ground rather then ejecting.
The Reapers are stuck in the cycle just as much as we are.
After the signal fails Sovereign comes up with some pretty ingenious methods of getting to the Citadel to activate the relay but he's still stuck trying to apply the idea "Vanguard activates the Citadel Relay" to a situation where it really doesn't work.
Once he dies Harbinger continues to try and follow the plan by building a new Vanguard to activate the Citadel Relay.
It's only once that plan fails and they have failed three separate times that the Reapers are willing to accept the Vanguard will not be activating the Citadel Relay.
So they fly to the Alpha, and later some other, Relay. Now the arrive in a galaxy that, somewhat, knows they are coming and has advanced past where they should be. Even worse the Relays aren't even turned off so the enemy is free to move around.
Their response? It's not give up on this cycle and just exterminate the lot of them before fixing the Citadel for the next cycle. No they try and continue the cycle and farm everyone into new Reapers.
The Reapers are brilliant and excellent at developing abstract solutions to complex problems. They just keep trying to solve the problems with their plan rather then accept their plan isn't working and come up with a new one.
Like trying to bail out a sinking ship rather then hopping in a life raft.
The 'let's fix the Citadel' plan isn't absolutely terrible though, even after it already failed once: It lets the Reapers strike down the biggest political unit in the galaxy with little warning. It's rather odd that they didn't go for it during the Reaper War itself but they probably had a large number of agents inserted in the power structure there and used it to leak information like a sieve or otherwise interfered in minor but felt ways to make the situation worse.
Hitting the Citadel isn't a bad plan. It's a great plan. The problem is they are stuck on the idea of the Vanguard activating the Citadel.
Hell I wouldn't be surprised if the reason they don't take the Citadel in canon and use it to shut down the Relays, which know they can still do from ME1, is because there is no Vanguard to do so.
That starts to make them a bit too stupid though. Now granted, it might be a valid reason in canon, but I for one would not mind if the reapers act smarter and more innovative in this quest, to balance the fact that Revy is smarter and more innovative than canon!Shepard. Make them a more credible threat to balance the fact that thanks to Revy, the galaxy will be far stronger and more prepared.
In canon Reapers were basically curbstomping the galaxy, and would have won if not for a Deus Ex Machina. Here, we might, might, just be able to fight them at anything even approaching equal standing. There's no reason to really buff them up.
True.
One thing I'd like to see happen is the Reapers actually taking the Citadel and shutting down the Relays.
Really shouldn't be too hard once they actually enter the galaxy. Hell us failing to stop Sovereign isn't even a bad end.
It would weaken us but QECs would keep communication lines up and we'd be throwing everything we can into those artificial Relays and improved drives.
Would really put the pressure on and be something really different from basically every other mass effect thing.
I am talking less about buffing them up and more about having them fight smart. For example, have them head straight for Citadel when they arrive as UberJJK mentioned above. Because they certainly would be capable of it once their full force arrives, and not doing so immediately in canon was just reapers being idiots for gameplay reasons.
My head canon about that is rather simple: They know thanks to Nazara that the Citadel is the seat of galatic power again, but at the same time they know that it is well protected and the Mass Relay to the Widow Nebula is a major choke point due to the funky stuff that the Photeans are supposed to have put into the clouds.
The Relays can only send so much mass through before even the Reapers risk crashing into each other or other objects near the Relays.
So the plan to get past that is easy: Hit every races homeworld - if the Council as the seat of galatic government is unavailable, you hit the seats behind that government while also shutting off communication.
You do that and everyone starts being concerned about their own homeworld instead of someone else's, splitting the collective force that the galaxy can bear. Remember how Shepard had to fly/run around trying to convince everyone to get together and beat the Reapers off Earth?
All according to plan. They did it all in order to get access to the Citadel, which they did.
They probably would have been surprised a little bit if your Shepard managed to convince the Quarians not to shoot at the Geth, which meant you had both the Geth and the Quarian fleet, but everything else was pretty much accounted for.
Everything else was going fine for the Reapers, they firmly believe in the whole 'living monument to the existance of a race' schick they have, all their plans revolve around high reward, minimum risk to themselves.
And they have it down pat thanks to having done this thousands/millions of times.
Van Ropen
Angry, angry about elves.
That really doesn't make sense though. If the entire Reaper force went straight to the Citadel after swinging by Kar'Shan to pick up some husks, they would take it without issue - at which point they have decapitated galactic leadership, have access to all the data they could want, and can shut down the Relays.
Getting the entire force to the Citadel shouldn't be a problem. We know they can already move entire fleets, even a fleet sized group of Reapers is enough to steamroll the Citadel's defenses.
Getting the entire force to the Citadel shouldn't be a problem. We know they can already move entire fleets, even a fleet sized group of Reapers is enough to steamroll the Citadel's defenses.
I dunno. Space is BIG, and the reapers built the mass relays so they can probably control their arrival destination with precision far beyond the other species. Heck, was that not a plot-point in ME2? That with Reaper IFF, you can get the Omega-4 relay to deliver you with incredible precision required to avoid being instakilled. (can anyone remember this better?)
In short, I find it unlikely that the reapers could not have sent a sufficient armada to overwhelm the ships guarding the Citadel and take it over with relative ease.
And once they have the Citadel, they can just turn off the entire Relay network, which in canon would basically have meant instant win, since it would have essentially removed FTL and all supply lines and such. That would have made it very easy for the reapers to win.
However that was not possible in-game since it would have meant no exploration for players and no side-quests on Citadel (not to mention making victory pretty impossible). However since this is a story-quest, I would prefer it if the reapers acted intelligent.
That means things such as Reapers trying to take control of the Citadel and the relay network when they arrive, and things like Sovereign trying to covertly sabotage and/or assassinate Revy when he realises how big a threat she has the potential to be. And so on.
EDIT: Found it on the wiki. The Reapers can control their destination when going through relays and so don't really suffer from the "drift" that other species do: http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Omega_4_relay
They don't suffer from the risk of colliding with each other. They would be able to send a massive fleet through with precision, and easily overwhelm any ships guarding the Citadel.
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Like I said though, in the codex it mentions that there is some sort of 'chaff' in the nebula which the Citadel resides in, which was believed to be made from completely synthetic atoms and that all traffic has to follow strict regulations to go from the Mass Relays to the Citadel.
It's even suggested that the only safe way to get to the Citadel is via the Mass Relays.
I think what would happen if you tried to go beyond a certain limit or avoided using the Mass Relays, is that you would crash into clouds of these atoms/chaff and tear your ship apart...
Hah found it: http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Codex:_Serpent_Nebula#Citadel_Station:_Serpent_Nebula
Citadel Station: Serpent Nebula Edit
The Citadel is surrounded by a blue-tinted reflection nebula. The light of the nebula is actually light from the Citadel, scattered and reflected back at the station.
At first, the Serpent Nebula was assumed to be made of microscopic construction debris. Prevailing theory holds the Protheans used molecular nanotechnology to manufacture the incredibly durable materials used to make the Citadel. But unlike other nebulae, the Serpent does not dissipate over time. Therefore, it must be replenished constantly. The current popular theory is that the non-recyclable waste collected by the Citadel's keepers is somehow rendered down to the atomic or molecular level, and ejected into the clouds.
The thick nebula presents a navigation hazard. Beyond the relatively clear areas around the Citadel, electrical discharges are common. These are not blocked by kinetic barriers, and can severely damage metal-framed starships. In addition, some dense knots of dust can overwhelm the repulsion of kinetic barriers on smaller ships. If such a vessel is moving fast enough at the time, the effects are similar to being hit by a sandblaster.
Attempting to reach the Citadel through open space navigation is unadvisable; the only safe approach is through the various mass relays that orbit it.
I wouldn't want to know what would happen if you ran through one of those clouds at FTL....shotgun blast straight through your hull...yikes.
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That sounds like a Reaper defense system, to keep other races from trying to destroy the Citadel once the Relays are down, more then anything else. Considering that and that they have significantly more accurate Relay FTL it's likely not an issue. Worst comes to worst they simply jump in one at a time which barring incredibly bad luck should still be fast enough to overwhelm the local forces and take the Citadel.
Uh, yes? And how did you think the reapers would arrive? What would happen is that the Citadel would just be there, and then suddenly BLAM, a hundred reapers suddenly arrived via the mass relay. Thats exactly how Sovereign did it in ME1. He arrived via the mass relay, and brought a fleet of geth ships with him. That alone was almost enough to overwhelm the ships defending the citadel.
Watch the start of this video:
Now replace everyone of those geth ships with a fullblown Reaper similar to Sovereign.
Thats what the Reapers would have done if they were smart, and it would have led to instant victory.