Arrogant and presumptuos like the Leviathans who still think of themselfes as "apex race" despite the fact they are almost whiped out by their own creation and its creations.
@Levitor I did, but something I forgot is that it was written like a research paper, not a literature paper. Which means it's not the most enjoyable to read. I would want to rework it a bit to share it.
@@The-Random-Hamlet Then please, take your time. Either in it's original form or after have gone through a rework, I'd still be interested in reading it :)
"Nazara. That is what the programs within the reaper called themselves. Sovereign was a name given by Saren Arturius. Saren and the heretics believed Nazara to be a supreme ruler... A sovereign." Interestingly, while looking for this quote, I found out that Nazara is an old Hebrew word meaning 'to watch'.
I always hypothesized that Nazara was the name of the species harvested. Still a cool little tidbit given that sovereigns role was to watch and assess the current cycle
Fantastic editing on this, the indoctrination sprinkled in is perfect. Really showing your chops as a dedicated fan of both ME and DA! I had no idea husks are just rejected reaper food! Neat!
Eh. The game is actually fun, the best in the series actually. And has interesting characters. The only bad thing I can say about it is, the story isn’t as good as the trilogy
@@CommanderShepard-wq3wo I wouldn't go that far to say it's better than the trilogy. Playing as a vanguard with a sniper rifle is pretty fun for me. But the combat in MEA is a lot better and I hope we get that with a better story in ME4.5
One small correction to the harvest pods. Dr Chakwas was able to see what was happening to those around her, so there was no sensory deprivation going on there.
The codex states and the voice lines state that their design is to isolate and dehumanise. Muffled cries of people dying the most agonising death imaginable will obviously be heard to some extent, and the windows are only opaque during transit
Andromeda even with it's flaws still had such potential for a great story. Unfortunately because the hate wagon killed any future games for it, we will never see that potential
Hey, it wasn't our fault they gave us a shatted on product on launch. No matter how good a game is, it could have the perfect story and gameplay, but if the bugs on it keep destroying the immersion and the pacing, it's gonna suffer a catastrophic fail. Sure, you can fix it with several patches like Andromeda, but the main damage was already done.
@@danielm.595 you never grew up in the 8, 16 or 24 bit era did you? Back then games never had good graphics and it was a story in such that kept us coming back. Who cares if game doesn't run on 1080p or whatever graphics are have 4K surround-sound whatever. It's a game that keeps you coming back. It's the story, it's the characters
I think the dialogue with Sovereign was made before Bioware knew what they wanted the Reapers to be. Thats why it would seem it talks with malice and hate towards organics
The Reapers having no presence in the Andromeda Galaxy and having little interest in ships fleeing there makes sense from a lore perspective. The Catalyst was programed first and foremost to preserve organic life in the Milky Way Galaxy by the Leviathans. According to the Catalyst's dialogue, those mission parameters have never changed. So from the way an AI thinks, it would be outside of it's mission parameters to waste resources outside of the specified mission area.
would the reapers even know about the andromeda initiative? i mean sure they might know that some people wanted to go to andromeda but the reapers came to the galaxy via the se corner of the galaxy map and based on where andromeda is in real life the initiative would likely have left the milky way via the sw. yes they both would have crossed deep space but the distances are so vast and the initiative was all so hush hush at the end there that they likely wouldn't know that they actually left
This may be an interesting concept, because there may be SUPER advanced civilizations in other galaxies that have mastered not just space travel between systems but between entire galaxies, but they've left the Milky Way alone because the Reapers kept showing up. Maybe they tried to make contact, hundreds of cycles ago, but realized it was a death sentence for any of their people they sent, and so just dipped out. Imo meeting a civilization like that would be a super cool concept and could maybe even give some major lore drops in regards to Reapers/past cycles.
@@bubblybobabubblesto build on that concept, maybe there are multiple civilizations of the past, such as the Jardon, who were originally from the Milky Way but left during a reaper invasion and the remainder of their species was killed. So it may not be that there are just other civilizations outside of the milky way trying to contact or help it, but maybe previous civilizations that survived the harvest entirely.
Surprised the reapers didn't catch wind of this an send a detachment of forces to hunt them, but ryder has control of meridian so I think they would be able to defeat the last of the reapers
yeah i always thought it would be so cool if a small group of reapers followed them to andromeda. idk why they didn't go with that. have them show up in the end wouldve been a perfect tease for a next game * shrug *
@@DekkarJr Who do you think has the fastest speed? Reapers who have existed for 1 billion years. Or races that have been in space for 3000 years? If the Reapers had followed the Arks, they would have caught up with them very quickly
@@DekkarJr And how do you think they flew so fast from intergalactic space? O_o Let me remind you that the Reapers are hiding in intergalactic space. In ME1, they are said to hide far away from the Milky Way to avoid being found. These are gigantic distances. And in six months, the Reapers flew from their base to the Milky Way
I hope not. Way too similar to the Reapers. I think they should scale back the whole "The entire galaxy is at stake!" thing. Just because if the stakes are always as high as the can possibly be, you can't ever make things more urgent, more dramatic.
Love the videos on ME. When you mentioned the influence of Lovecraft and the Call of Cthulhu I immediately thought about the Leviathan dlc and how I thought, at the time, how quaint it was that it was like a mystery novel. Now I understand why.
My kind transcends your very understanding. We are each a nation. Independent, free of all weakness. You cannot even grasp the nature of our existence.
Technically, it's not wrong: all life forms we see today have genetically mutated from an earlier form of life. But I get what you mean. Had the line been "Sentient life is nothing but a genetic mutation"...would have been more scary.
Your stuff has always been really well presented from the start. Succinct videos like this will appeal to Mass Effect fans and well as piquing the interest of newcomers to the franchise. I occasionally watch videos exploring game franchises I have heard of but never played.
Iconic sound, acient being fom a far of era of the universe, appear every few thousand years to wreck advanced civilization and then retreat to let others rise up ... yeah ...
Kinda. Except Reapers wanted to extermine species while preserving only a genetic memory of them, like living museums, while the Shadows perpetuated conflict for the sake of galactic evolution and growth. Their goal was to help species flourish, not exterminate them. So while both are bad, Reapers are far worse IMO.
Great video, but deep space refers to the space between solar systems, the reapers hide in dark space, the space between galaxies. Makes me wonder what the space between galaxy clusters is called and what can hide there.
Thinking about it, the construct that "manage" the reapers is mostly an archivist... That is so far detached from "living day to day" that it doesn't see the sentient spiecies (organics and synthetics) as... well..."sentient organisms" (don't know how to tell in english). Its goal in honorable but the practice loose its purpose. Even worse, the cycle is created to optimise this shiet. A game where you play a simple human just before the reaper attack or a TV show that do the same and at the end you hear the reapers would be chilling.
Liara: I don't know if you're arks left the galaxy... Umm Liara you are literally the best information broker in the galaxy, BS you don't know. The Andromeda team really didn't know how to handle the previous games canon.
Great vid. Assuming direct control! I feel that you can only draw 60 per cent inspiration from Lovecraft. Any more and you write yourself into a corner with only 2 outcomes: the protagonist goes mad (the Lovecraftian solution); or a magic, Devine machnical hand descends from the heavens to pluck the hero out of danger. This is what i think makes ME3's ending seem forced and unsatisfactory. See, they loved the underdog trope because it's an easy sell and ME2 empowered Shepard and the Nomandy 2 far too much. I would argue that all the Reapers didn't need any further increases to power as their number, tactics, ability to rapidly assimilate and convert an enemy's army, and superior firepower. ME3 had everything already set up in it's missions and by the end the Galaxy had the smallest chance of success. But no, they had to keep building them up that they had to create the most hated character in all sci fi: the Star child.
I read somewhere the original ending for ME3 was leaked before the game launched, and the writers changed it at the last minute. The original ending revealed that the galactic population using Mass Effect dark energy was causing stars to age rapidly (like the planet in ME2 that Tali was studying) and destroying the universe. The Reapers reaping the galaxy was actually them saving the galaxy from all collective biotic users. I liked this ending better, because when Sovereign and Harbinger say "We are beyond your comprehension," not understanding the full extent of Mass Effect dark energy fits better than the Reapers using our DNA to reproduce and make new Reapers. And it gives the Mass Effect title more relevance. But more importantly, you lookin' hot, Saria ;)
That ending wasn't leaked, it was changed due to Mac Walters becoming the head writer instead of Drew Karpyshyn like he was in the first game. He and Mac worked in the second game together as co head writers as a transition for Mac to take over completely in the third game. Who in turn with Casey Hudson's approval gave us the pick your color endings. And unfortunately the dark energy theory had some plot holes. Including the fact that the Mass Relays use dark energy as well. And since the Reapers created the Mass Relays and use them to guide each civilization down the path they want, it made them look hypocritical and stupid for trying to get rid of the dark energy problem. Plus, the original ending involved Shepard having to choose between letting the Reapers complete the harvesting of humanity in order to create a Reaper that could destroy dark energy (it's why the proto Reaper looked human), or refuse and hope humanity finds its own way to stop the dark energy problem. Because apparently only humans are unique/special enough to stop the dark energy problem, which sounded really stupid and arrogant considering all the other species in the galaxy.
@@jillgrimwater3726while you are right in what you say I believe if Drew had been the lead writer on all 3 games he would have found a way to make the dark energy ending work and make sense. It was only an outline he had for the ending after all which obviously would have been focused on a lot if he worked on ME3.
@@BeautyIsJustAMask I hope you're right. But he usually doesn't give happy endings to his stories (the first three tie in novels), and he really likes to make his villains get away with some horrible things.
The reapers were such an interesting and existential beyond comprehension antagonist that was completely undermined by the last 30 minutes of the game. The Star Child has to be one of the worst examples of a deux ex machina device in the history of story telling. I still hold to the "Indoctrination Theory" which if it turned out to be true would have been one of the greatest mind f***s in any piece of entertainment.
Reapers are pretty cool. I'd love to collect reaper models and paint them up if there was ever a tabletop wargame for mass effect like Star Wars Legion or Warhammer.
The sound Sovereign makes is a garbage can lid, but I'm pretty sure the reaper horn is something else. The reapers in part 3 sound completely different from Sovereign.
I didn't know about the trash can being the origin of the reaper sound. Too cool. Also, why do nearly all reapers look like leviathan? If they're making reapers based on the civilizations they conquer where are the prothean-looking reapers? They all look like kinda like beetles to me.
Those are the Reaper ships; the core of each Reaper ship is the amalgam of the harvested species, so that Human Form Reaper at the end of ME2 would have eventually been put into one of those squid ships. In reading around, it seems they settled on the Leviathan's form as an effective standardized ship design.
Hey there, Saria. Was just curious as to which video in your library refer to the Reapers ability (or lack thereof) to find the deep space Arks. Watched all of your ME content and don't remember seeing that anywhere, so a link would be much appreciated as that did pique my curiosity. Just wasn't enough so to make me play Andromeda >.>
Considering ME goes by Kilotons and not Gigatons of force. It has been heavily debated that Halo ships, Starcraft, Star wars, etc... Would absolutely be able to go toe to toe in conventional battle against the reapers. I do not say curb-stomp as reaper lasers are in essence millions of shards of molten slag metal being fired at near light speed, which would rip open anything that isn't shielded or armored to the extreme. Not to mention they literally clone and spawn millions of troops for ground battle while also using the dead to replenish their ranks. So I won't say it would be easy but the other universes would have a better time in dealing with them. For starters, ME cannons go by kilotons of force which the reapers have been shown to tank easily enough with sustained fire over a long period being able to finally take one down. Halo MAC cannons on the other hand range from the weakest prewar frigates being 58.7 kilotons. (Lore is vague on it and had to do a bit of research) To Super-Mac's that...get this have a yield of approx. 51.63 GIGATONNES of force, or in other words 1000x the power of the Tsar Bomba. Which was the most powerful nuke ever created in irl history. Super-Mac's would cleave through Harbinger class ships like knife through butter. Thoughts?
Why do you need some puny Halo tech when you have the might of Imperium of Men and your legion of the space wolf! At your command Lord Russ! The Son of the God Emperor! The reaper will have no chance against your might!
@@ericmacrae6871 aye ye wanted them ta’hav at least a’fair chance. The Imperium will curb stomp pretty much any other universe tha ain’t as bonkers as ours is. Also you have a fine spirit lassy the halls of the Vrka Fenryka will surely welcome ye.
@@lemanruss2491 on a serious note. I was actually thinking more about the Reaper and it has been a few years since I played the game so I forgot quite of bit of the lore and I had to do some research to remind me the lore of the mass affect. The reaper might not be the most technological advances species in the warhammer 40k universe. However it does not mean that they cannot adapt to more advances tech. Sure compare to the other species the reapers were the apex predator to any other culture in the milky way galaxy. But we do know that they have the ability to adapt to their circumstances with the diffeent reaper unit ranging and making all kinds of upgrades to their biology. The MOST devasting weapons that the reaper have among everything else is their indoctrination weapon. That weapon alone makes them an extremely deadly foe. This is the key component that makes them more terrifying than anything else. We know that they can send indoctrinated species to do their dirty work and have them work in the shadow. Just think about the collectors they were the protheans who did the reaper work while they were hiding in the shadow. We also know that cerbrueus fall under the influence of the reaper. Indoctrination is something that we cannot underestimates and we KNOW that the Imperium of Men people can fall to the influence of the wispers of the Chaos Gods. On top of that the Empirum of Men isn't exactly good with their logistic and they tend to have huge problems with communication, supply etc. Let's pick a scenario the reapers first action will be scouting the galaxy to gather as much info as possible. We know that they are extremely patient and they will gather all the data that they need before they emerge from dark space. So my first instinct says that they will determine that they can enter the galaxy just yet since their are technologically inferior compare to the other species. However, they can send *representatives* to the Tau Empire. They know that the Tau would love to do diplomacy with them and offer *great advancement* basically the typical stuff that they would do. Since the Tau are such a naive species and they would jump to the opportunity to work with the reaper. Without even them knowing they are now under the reaper control fully indoctrinated within 100 years. Using that species they can easily start modify the repear technology with the Tau technology and the reaper have far more resources they can easily make some serious upgrade. Than they can start having some delegation and start doing other trading with other species such has the vaultan. Oops we have more repear artifact into another species that is slowly corrupting their species. This process just keep repeating itself over and over and over again. Until they have enough power to simply emerge and start their war. Their element of surprise is going to be their greatest weapon. Nothing in the Imperium of Men or any other species can prepare for such outcome. The only species that I can see that the indoctrination will not work is the Necron. Even tyranid can succumb to indoctrination. Just think about how that hive mind science in ME (I'm forgetting what they are called) indoctrination STILL WORKS ON THEM. Just think about the millions of hive world that the Imperium of Men has and they don't know what they lurk in the shadow. Yet, it wouldn't take much for a hive world to fall for indoctrination.
Christ! She BUTCHERED the lovecraftian pronunciation!! But she's right that there are some VERY strong Lovecraftian themes in mass effect: "That is not dead, which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons, even death may die." That sounds like both a description of the reapers AND a prophecy of their demise. Ia, Ia, Cthulhu fhtagn!
Except Bioware did tell us all of this about the Reapers, if you paid attention to the information in the games. Also Reapers were not designed to travel in "Dark Space" but only retreated there to hibernate between Harvests. Given that Reapers viewed themselves as "Pinnacles of Evolution" they probably never attempted to overcome the problems with traveling in Dark Space. This would mean they would likely never be able to reach Andromeda to begin with. And while Reaper Eezo cores are immensely powerful, they can not sustain a powered up Reaper for thousands of years. This is even stated by the Reapers that they must shut down to minimal levels while they wait for new civilizations to rise up and be ready to harvest.
Those weren’t exactly the Reapers in ME2. The Collectors are Prothens that were captured, ect. By the Reapers and they went through extensive genetic reworking to the point of not even being Prothen anymore, just tools that work and communicate through a hive mind. They were tools As Saren and the Geth were when they aided Sovereign. I like the video you did, but I’d enjoy watching you do a deep dive on not just the Reaper’s as an individual force, but go deeper and explore and explain the agents, tools, and the effects Indoctrination had on certain characters and the story as a whole. I hope I was helpful in some way or gave you ideas for perhaps new content 😊 (Don’t mind all the mis spelled sht)😂
Honestly I havent finished Andrómeda yet and that thing about The Andrómeda Project being a flee of The Reapers didnt took me by surprise. It might be because I just finished The OG trilogy But I almost instantly suspected thats The reason behind The Project. Its quite obvious.
Love the fact that two most iconic sounds in sci-fi were random sounds like the reapers is a rubbish bin and the tie fighters are elephants sounds sped up
It doesn't quite make sense of beating a reaper in the game. A biotic giant worm can take down a reaper. Shepherd him/herself took down a reaper. But a whole galaxy military squad can't beat them. especially when shepherd took one down the whole galaxy should already know their weakness. If a worm can beat one I believe a nukeboom can kill one too😅😅😅
In the grand scheme of video games villains they are average. The Citadel races are at an disadvantage from the jump because the tech is already outdated and antiquated because the Reapers created it to be so therefore now wow factor no hype nothing just a enemy who set themselves up to win and just so happen to be 2km long cuttlefish who are sentient. Why do reapers have massive interior space for crews?!
The reapers don't hibernate for 50.000 years. It took this cycle 50.000 years to achieve the required technology level. They hibernate for however long it takes the races of the next cycle to achieve that level.
"Millennia" is already the plural. Saying "millennias" is as stupid and redundant as saying "dogses". Indoctrinated by murrican education system, are we?
I've always wondered why the reapers are only present in the milky way galaxy and no where else. Andromeda does have any reaper activity? No other galaxy had encountered them? Whats so special or scary about our galaxy that make the reprars want to contain us?
It's a shame they were literally ruined by the ending of 3. All the wonder and intrigue about them was literally wiped away by the nonsense of the 'catalyst'. Biggest let down in gaming
The fact they are technological in nature...they must have a consensus to agree on action and create the algorithm that makes all reapers hibernate for said specific amount of time since its virtually a standby mode on your PC.
I swear your voice sounds so familiar and my comment keeps getting deleted for some reason but did you use to run a channel called the truth factory as a talking cat?
The only problem with Castis talking about the Reapers is that it accidentally retcons part of the trilogy's timeline. The Andromeda Initiative takes flight before the start of Mass Effect 2, but Garrus doesn't tell his father about the Reapers until nearly right before the start of the third game. Plus that cheap copy and paste texture of Kandros with different colors that they put on Castis still made me angry 😠.
@Максим Иванов you didn't misunderst him so yes he was slightly wrong. Even then it doesn't make sense because the recording implies that it took place after ME3 since it was at that time where the Repaers showed up
I may be wrong, but I think the leviathan in ME3 utters the reapers real name, but you can’t understand it as it’s in the leviathans language. Don’t quote me on this, though. It’s been about a year and a half since I played through it.
The lovecraftian part of Mass Effect is why the story and the games are so captivating and surreal, because it plays with our own real fears. We hardly know what really happens outside of our own solar system and we have only mapped perhaps 5% of the Milky Way Galaxy. Who knows what is to be discovered in the other 95% of space in just this one galaxy. And then to remember that we are part of a super cluster which contains hundreds of galaxies. And that our supercluster is only one of endless other clusters. That means we only have an idea of what even les than 0.1% of the universe looks like
I have played Andromeda and I enjoyed it but I did not unlock the final memory. Why is the Andromeda initiative only meant to save humanity when all the other Milky Way species are also in danger of being wiped out and also sending their people to Andromeda? Did you misspeak or is that really what the memory shows?
I just played through all 3 games in quick succession, and now I’m suffering from a serious bout of Post Series Depression. Lore videos like this is often my coping method 😂 That and listening to the soundtrack a bunch lol
Boy do I have the series for you. Dragon age origins has way more character choice, the combat is different and it’s an older game but it is the perfect next step to mass effect. It’s by BioWare as well, there’s a whole series of games.
This is the one I loved when I played the game, it was SO powerful and chilling at the same time.. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-8OLBXJ9MngE.html Mass Effect 3 - Rannoch Reaper Conversation
