Our Greatest Enemy | Reapers COMPLETE Breakdown
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- Опубліковано 5 лип 2024
- The Reapers are the greatest enemy to all life in the Milky Way Galaxy. This complete breakdown of this Mass Effect species, which blurred the line between organic and artificial life, from their history with the Leviathan species, to their ultimate fate with Commander Shepard. See while this is the ultimate Mass Effect species.
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"Ah, yes, 'Reapers'. The immortal race of sentient starships allegedly waiting in dark space. We have dismissed this claim."
That line from that taurian is the example of being oblivious to a greater threat.
@@paytonturner1421 the oh so great Citadel Council blinds themselves and their citizens to maintain the "very precious" status quo. Pathetic.
@@spartantraveler7251Terra Firma, mf
Which game and part was this line from? Im going to clip it and use it on my youtube page as a snarky remark. Lol (not this account im messaging from)
@@jrr7031 ME2
It's wild that this series is 17 years old now. I remember getting this for Christmas in 2007, and how much fun I had discovering this crazy galaxy. Definitely peak BioWare, along with NWN, BG 1 and 2, Jade Empire, KOTOR, and DA. Just a fuckin decade+ of bangers from them.
I remember my dad got me ME1 for my birthday but I was disappointed and confused. I had never heard of Mass Effect, but I still decided to give it a try.
I quickly grew to love it with multiple playthroughs.
The PS3 is almost 18 💀
@misanthropicservitorofmars2116 I played it on the 360 bc screw waiting 5 years for them to port it to PS3. We didn't even know IF it was going to get a port at the time.
Man Jade Empire, that takes me back a loooong time. Great game, and obviously all the others were absolute bangers too.
@@wanderhillen2435 Yeah, I picked it up when I saw it was a BioWare game. It had a good story, and I liked that BW tried something a little outside of their wheelhouse.
God damn Mass effect's such an amazing series. The fact that it stays grounded to real science while still having batshit crazy technology and lore is so appealing
yeah every time I look into it more I find new things I love and extra layers
“We impose order on the chaos of organic evolution you exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it. I am the vanguard of your extinction this exchange is over”Sovereign
“Your words are as empty as your future. We are the vanguards of your destruction.” CHILLS, every single time!
Goosebumps frrr🥶🥶
Man you could tell me the lore of a coconut and I'd listen to it. The fact that you're constantly covering subjects I enjoy is just the benefit. Great work man!
I’d like to point out that it WAS a long time for the intelligence to decide on its final solution: the Reaper program. The intelligence tells you that it studied and tried to intervene in many AI uprises over an unknown period of time. It didn’t just instantly decide it would turn on its masters, and really if you think about it the Reaper program carried out its function successfully for a BILLION YEARS. It’s hard to say it was a failure of a project when it was largely correct, until Shepard and the most upgraded Crucible happened to just show up in the same cycle and prove to the Intelligence that the Reaper program had finally failed. Which is also the best argument against indoctrination theory, because no matter what ending you chose, the catalyst gives you a way to destroy the Reaper program in its current form. Even, ironically, the refusal ending leads to the defeat of the Reapers.
Fun Fact: Bioware the Studio behind Mass Effect they also did the STAR WARS KOTOR when developing KOTOR 3 before cancelling the enemies The true sith were inspired by the shadow from Babylon 5 and when the game was cancelled they based The Reapers on the old game
They also graced us with the first 2 Baldur's Gate games, and the excellent Neverwinter Nights. I remember how awesome KOTOR was, bc it felt like NWN, but with a better budget, and the change in camera angle made it feel more cinematic.
Damn, so Babylon 5 really did influence sci-fi. The shadows are arguably the best sci-fi villains ever written
Imagine how many Reapers got destroyed during the games and in the final battle in ME3. They make one Sovereign class per worthy race per cycle. So something between one to four in one Cycle. The Protheans only resulted in a single new Reaper. So even if the reapers had won that final engagement, this Cycle has caused them demage measuring in the dozens and dozens of Cycles. So even if the ME3 organics had lost that war, it would have been an absolute *disaster,* a phyrric victory, for the reapers. Likely forcing them to completely rethink and adjust the cycle in accordance. So if the ME3 organics hadnt won that war, organic intelligent life in its entirety may have never gotten another chance to get that close to them ever again.
ME3 really is the final battle.
so this is a common and understandable misunderstanding, the reapers turn 1 species per cycle into capital ship class reapers while all others becomes destroyers, only 1 capital ship reaper per cycle is unsustainable.
@@gryphon_Space aaaah I see. thanks! now that makes the statistic for them even worse. even more cause for them to reasses and redesign the cycle alltogether.
But I always wondered why they never took a more proactive aproach to the entire cycle and indoctrinate and elevate organics way more directly?
Why not infuse all aspiring civilised organic species with strong religious cults, honoring the reapers as their gods and salvation? Like with the Geth. This leads to them either just surrender to the Reapers as soon as they emerge, or there will be huge religious galactic civil wars, wich weakens their defense against the extermination. Either way the Reapers would have a really easy harvest.
I am having the Genestealer Cults in Warhammer 40k in mind.
Or is this like the Matrix: "The system doesnt work if we make it too easy"?
“We impose order on the chaos of organic evolution. You exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it.”
~ Sovereign
Such a chilling line.
Baffles me that Sovereign is not Harbinger.
Harbinger is a loser and doesn’t project the same level of fear as Sovereign. He also had the balls to fight us directly. Taking over Saren’s corpse to try and kill Shepard. Unlike Harbinger, who just stares at the Normandy landing directly infront of it and lets it take off without a single beam of death being fired.
Well to be fair Harbinger constantly fights against us in ME2 by assuming control of troops just like Sovereign did with Saren. I just found it odd how absent Harbinger was in ME3, i expected him to be the "main" antagonist and taking more direct action against Sheppard. But one could argue that he underestimated him even after all the setbacks and focused on the galactic purge instead until way too late
@@brunohommerding3416at the very end of the game you'll see harbinger, that big ass reaper when you run to the beam leading to the citadel.
@@brunohommerding3416 I don't think Harbinger underestimates Shepard, that Reaper on Rannoch said that Harbinger speaks about Shepard and the threat they pose. Also the reason why Harbinger and the Reapers hit Earth the hardest was due to Shepard and in extention humanity gaining the Reapers attention by destroying Sovereign and delaying their invasion. Harbinger even goes to Earth to try and kill Shepard directly in the final beam run. It was a poor decision by Bioware not to include Harbinger in ME3 more though.
They worshipped, so they said, the Great Old Ones who lived ages before there were any men, and who came to the young world out of the sky...
Lovecraft's influence on modern media could never be properly measured.
Imagine getting turned into soup but at least you get to be a super cool giant spaceship robot, only to get murdered again before you even leave the shipyard
Imagine if Star Wars had something like this
Abeloth and Vong should count as such. Or at least something simmilar.
Star wars
King's of the galaxy
Fighting for you and I
Fighting for me
The first season of Star Trek: Picard shamelessly ripped off mass effect. STP had "artifacts" that granted visions of an ancient machine race that periodically wiped out organics.
The people that have made games and written books set in the Star Wars universe are way better writers than those that created the Star Wars universe. Reason I like the games better than the films, mostly, is because of the terrible writing the films have and all the inconsistencies and bullshit. It’s like they were just making it up as they went with no real thought behind it.
@@Gabes_Game_Cave and mass effect ripped off a ton of other material. Every idea in sci fi has already been done. Every trope exhausted. Tge trick is can you use those lego bricks to tell a new story.
My take on The Reapers, is that while being an objectively highly advanced machine race.
I think they're actually quite lacking on the high end tech and military advancement tree.
It's very well known that the Reapers would not be able to fight the Covenant Fleet with some research, Reaper ships armor and Kinetic barrier type shielding isn't good enough to handle immensely powerful Plasma weaponry that the Covie fleet uses.
Moreover, when it comes to the upper echelons of the tech tree that a civilization can reach, the Reapers are powerful, but average fish in the sea. The Reapers aren't capable of technologically progressing, they fall into the classic trap of essentially being a corrupted genocidal machine race. For example, I personally think the Reapers would experience a severe run for their money against the Cybrex and Contingency from Stellaris, it's actually possible the Ghost Signal would completely humble the Reapers.
I DO think the Cybrex and Contingency wouldn't outright annihilate them very quickly, but they would severely cripple them to the point that the Reapers would never be capable of threatening the Galaxy ever again. If you toss in the Ghost signal? It's over. The Reapers aren't capable of innovation or engineering on a mass scale to protect themselves, they are flawed machines run by a non-adaptive Machine Consciousness.
The Reapers would also be completely unable to fight against the likes of Mendicant Bias, nor it's superior, Offensive Bias. Such AI are beyond comprehension, reaching Godlike levels of processing capabilities. It's not just those entities' processing and tactical prowess, it's their technology too. It's not really worth digging into.
Honestly, I'm genuinely unsure how Reapers en masse would be able to handle the Imperium of Man from 40k in space specifically, from what I've seen, Imperium navy ships come slightly short when in even numbers vs a Reaper fleet. But the thing about the Reapers, are that they're a ground invasion type of crisis. I absolutely believe the Imperium would be more than capable of destroying Reaper ground offensives. The Reapers would lose a battle of attrition to the Imperium HARD because of this.
Reaper Destroyers would go down so goddamn fast, Sovereign class Reapers, while large, would lack the armor and fighting power to actually stand in a protracted fight against the Imperiums capabilities for immense firepower down on planetside.
If the Reapers fought the Necrons or Eldar? Please, the Reapers are far too primitive in comparison to top level advancement such as them, they are the 0.1% of the 1%
I think the Reapers are a nightmare scenario crisis for the vast majority of Civilizations in any Galaxy, but when it comes to the upper echelons of civilizations? The Reapers aren't capable of punching in the their own weight class.
Such a great build-up, only to fail at the climax.
That's what she said.
@@silverhawkscape2677 nnnice
I know a lot of people hated the three colors ending or how there are theories on Shepard already being indoctrinated by that point.
But personally, I still subscribe to the Synthesis ending. It is the only one that really offers a long-term solution to the primary conflict of the entire Mass Effect series, racial differences. From the warlike Krogan to the alien Rachni, from the Biotics enhanced Asari to the mechanical Geth, or organics versus synthetics,... all have differences that prevents them from truly uniting. Even as the backdrop or unintended consequence of our actions, Shepard have slowly build bridges and solve those differences throughout the trilogy.
Destruction would stop the immediate threat, but all it really does is resetting the cycle of violence. Someday, when the lesson of the past is long forgotten, another conflict between organics and synthetics will rise again.
Control halt the threat, keeping the cycle in a stalemate. But how long will it last? What stopping the cycle to resume when control no longer function, much like the Keepers of the Citadel?
Synthesis change the cycle, giving it new paths and possibilities. Much like with other races throughout the trilogy, we extend an olive branch of reconciliation to the Reapers. To break down the barrier between organics and synthetics, helping them to see eyes to eyes with each other so we can all come out stronger together.
If Legion, the Geths, and EDI have a soul, then so does a Reaper. It would be hypocritical otherwise. And personally, the Shepard I know would not throw those lives away if there is another option. The Synthesis option is scary because we fear change, the unknown, and false promises. But if no one take that first step, then nothing changed, nothing get solved.
I've been arguing for years at this point that synthesis was the best option.
Very nice
I disagree I think Synthesis is the worst one out the 3. It makes the least sense, it's the worst explained and it looks ridiculous. Forcing evolution on an entire galaxy without there consent, from just one human is unethical. It also wouldn't stop wars as organics and synthetics being connected and understanding each other isn't the only issue, even the Geth had a war with each other against the heretics, as long as everyone is individualistic, and have different ideas and beliefs, there will always be conflict. This ending also doesn't explain what will happen to the millions of husks, who's lives have already been ruined by the Reapers or to all the families that have all been torn apart by the Reapers and we're supposed to believe that they're just going to forgive and work with the Reapers peacefully now? This ending also goes against the trilogy constantly talking about the importance of advancing on your own and not being given short cuts to reaching that goal, this is even said by Legion in ME2. The galaxy is capable of reaching some type of Synthesis on their own without Reaper intervention or without it being forced upon them, If Alec Ryder could figure this out in MEA, I'm pretty sure people more intelligent than him could figure this out too. I think Destroy is the best, just because the Reapers say the problem will continue doesn't mean organics can't prove them wrong and find a solution on their own. Let's not forget, the Reapers also said they couldn't be defeated and were wrong about that too.
@@emmanuel4989 so "destroy" is ethical? Mind you that we've already established that geth and synthetics have individuality too. But killing trillions of synthetics is ethical?
@@emmanuel4989 "just because the reapers says the problems will continue doesn't mean the organics can prove them wrong" is one of the stupidest idea out there. Dude the same has been happening for literal billions of cycles, what makes organics of this cycle special? Shepard? 😂 besides the way organics solve problems is with AI and synths EVERY SINGLE TIME. Look at reality right now, we are not far from a world where AI controls everything, DO YOU think you're special? 😂 do you think you're the next Elon musk or the next bill gates?
They were inspired by Babylon 5's "Shadows"
Mass effect 3 galaxy map theme if you're wondering. I've been listening to it for years whenever I needed to relax and get some sleep
The more I hear about the Reapers origin the more I'm starting to think I'm getting indoctrinated
EA are the real Reapers.
They preserve nothing, while consuming & destroying all they lay their hands on.
RIP Bioware, builders of wonderful universes and stories.
You are missed.
Give the writers of mass effect their flowers. Good god!
I loved the games but no idea how deep the lore was.
Did you not play the games? Lol
Us believing AI will evolve past us is just hubris. This whole story, is about precived hubris, across different mediums, times, dementions(dark space), and so on. IMO.
I'm still traumatized from andromeda and will never recover.
Love mass effect so glad you covered the reapers I think they are awesome and it’s a shame more people didn’t seek out their history while playing the games
I know glados/hal is considered to be the best ai villains but I think the reapers take the crown as number one best ai villain.
So much damn potential…the writers just couldn’t bring it all together in a way that satisfied all that build up.
The Reapers remind me of the "Hunters of the Dawn" in a book series that starts with Luna Marine and continued through 9 books that gave me hope for our future... even with the Hunters as a BIG BAD.
They are THE ANSWER to the Fermi Paradox.
Sounds interesting I'll look into it
This game blew my mind. I couldn't stop playing, heartbroken at the end. The Sovereign blew my mind.
I'll admit i never expected Metanerdz to cover anything in the Mass Effect series it's a surprise to be sure but a welcome one
FINALLY someone is doing reaper lore
отлично, мне нравятся твои прошлые видео по Star Wars, а Mass Effect моя самая любимая трилогия - я рад что ты начал делать видео по этой вселенной)
I love the inclusion of Mass Effect Andromeda story as well. I really wish they'd make a sequel to that game, if nothing else but to complete that story. Hopefully the upcoming Mass Effect game answers some of those questions
I finally gave Andromeda a chance it honestly wasn't that bad I really liked it I gotta play again on ps5 I wasn't very far on it on my ps4 b4 I upgraded lol
@@HyugaBlood881 and it suffered the same behind-the-scenes issues that Mass Effect 3 did too. Rushed to production, even plans canceled because they just didn't have enough time. It's actually a decent game. It could be better, of course, but it still could be much worse
The mass effect 3 fight with them was underwhelming
I think that game was rushed to completion. Same with Andromeda. So they could've been much better if they were given more time on both games
Yea.... by the time we fought the 'baby reaper'.... everyone should have known it was over!
So glad this series was apart of my childhood
I hope you can do halo and the covenant species and weapons and ships one day and I hope you’re doing well and take care and keep up the good work😊❤
thanks you too! and yep I have a ton of those already written just gotta get to them over the year
The video was very entertaining and informative, that's what I like about your channel and your videos. Can you do videos on the Mass Effect races?
Yeah I have them all written up but getting them done is taking time but should be done with all in a few months
@@MetaNerdzLoreJust take your time to make sure anything important that you need to do is done. You don't want to rush yourself.
I took a week off from undergrad classes during 2009 to play this game.
The memories were good!
How fitting, my Favorit tabletop System Dropzone commander and its sister System dropfleet commander released a trailer for a New faction yesterday, and the faction is a bit like the reaper mixed with 40k's Khorne
God I remember the Kotor series, jade empire, and the ME series as peak gaming.
What's WILD is if you think of how many times the reapers harvested the galaxy in the billion or so years since the first harvest of Harbinger. Even giving them a million years to build the relays and ect, if they conducted the harvest an average of every 50k years, there have been about 20,000 "cycles"
Our real enemies are the friends we made along the way
Lol probably true with the leviathans
Alright fine…
*boots up mass effect for the 19th time*
Awesome
The Sovereign speech will ALWAYS stick with me
Why is everyone suddenly making Reaper videos? I’m getting worried here
Lol really? That is scary
It’s probably just because of all the hype for the new ME game
Probably because mass effect has been circulating the internet more than usual lately.
@stubbornspaceman7201 surely this game will be better than andromeda...... right?
@@Dovah_SlayerHonestly the biggest problem with Andromeda is that like 3 it was *heavily* rushed. But one can only hope that this new one *doesn’t* flop.
Good thing the Reapers don’t make the Mass relays use the IFF system during the invasion. Resistance would be completely futile if you can’t retreat
That multi colored ending that this franchise ended on will never leave the back of my mind.
Their reasoning: "To avoid inevitable conflict between organics and synthetics, we (synthetics) show up every 50.000 years and destroy all organics"
Wait, what!? That's just outright stupid...
watch the whole thing it was that obviously stupid you have to think u missed something. Each species is preserved in the Reaper, the alternative was species kept going extinct. Think like all the other homo genus like Neanderthal that are extinct, they live on in our DNA, but if you wanted to preserve them you would have needed to step in to prevent homo sapiens absorbing them. They also do not destroy all organics, they take only the most technologically advanced ones, that are on the cusp of developing AIs that could make them go extinct.
You say that, but the Reaper program runs successfully for a billion years. It can’t be all that bad a plan.
I still don't get why the Reapers didn't make a beeline to the Citadel to immediately take control of the Mass Relay system during ME3.
Right off the bat, sovereign dising on organic life.
Tali is best girl.
I have always wondered... Since the Rachni Wars were going on around the time of the Roman Empire, what if they had worked and Sovereign had weakened the galaxy enough to end the cycle then... The Salarians, Turians, Asari, and Krogan wouldn't be around anymore... But humanity would then have the next 50,000 years to do their thing. Even though the Reapers would have corrected the genetic modification of the Keepers and gained full control of the Citadel, Humanity would still have a ridiculously long time to work through things and most likely come across evidence of the Reapers to some effect pretty early on. Although I guess that's what Sovereign's presence is for, to watch and make sure that no organic civilization has enough time to truly pose a threat. So maybe my hypothetical cycle wouldn't be allowed to last very long haha.
Truly the final decision of the player is based both of their experience and their morals 🤔
Comes down to how they view the world, how they interact with it, and how they perceive both it and themselves
Just what would be the right choice given the gravity and weight the decision makes, we can speculate all we like but none of us would truly know the choice we will make unless we are in the scenario
They looked like ginormous bedbugs
Well good thing that the reapers are now gone right… right?
Straight away, Harbinger is a snitch.
Can you look at Matrix Sentinels
27:58 Don't think I missed you using the M-920 Cain you filthy casual.
All jokes aside 2 shot-ing ending boss is never not funny.
Not sure what series this is but have a like and a comment anyway
Mass Effect.
@@JesusChristDenton_7 Thanks, got that after watching. I'm here for the Star Wars content but like to support the content I don't know about as well!
That stupid catalyst kid ruined the Reapers for me permanently.
So how many endings are there again
I hate the refuse ending because it’s like ow well guess I’ll die now but at the beginning of the game and three missions earlier from you speaking with the catalyst it’s established that the alliance have weapons that can kill reapers in one shot so how do we just lose? Also along with the havoc-h3 and thanex cannons we have the leviathan help us so they should also be helpful in making weapons to help kill the reapers so how do we just lose?
Its weird that we never got a protheon reapers considering there was a human one
I really loved the Reapers as antagonists, as characters. ME3's color coded ending was very disappointing for such a fascinating fusion of angel and alien, of religion and science. I never thought of Reapers in the context of the Christian Resurrection, but it makes a lot of sense!
Reminds me of The Combine, Xenomorphs and Necromorphs. Nothing is original. Only inspired and differently executed.
Please help me remember the name of a game… it was a trilogy I believe where the guy fights alien invasion but becomes corrupted in the end??
Super Mario Bros.
Reapers terrifies me as much as a Tyranid hive fleet or Zerg swarm.
“Reapers”
Sure, buddy.
Sure.
Dude, it's Ilos. Ilos is the planet that those Prothean scientists took refuge on, Eos is the first planet to make habitable and colonize in Mass Effect Andromeda.
lol I know idk what that was, why Eos was even on the mind
I always chose Synthesis tbh
How many new IPs release today with this kind of worldbuilding and psychology built into it?
yeah it is crazy sad going over even just the original halo 1-3, and mass effect, tons of legit philosophy and want to work in real history and biology, playing with religious concepts as well
We’ll bang, ok?
FYI don’t put a red boarder around your thumbnails I thought I’d already seen this due that the red bar running across the bottom of video
Games were great compared to now a days, wish they had better evil endings though. It felt shallow compared to good ending.
I can take them out. 😎
Reapers are probably the best AI-sci-fi thing.
Are the Reapers a play on the Dark Forest.
Not entirely but the theory is semi touched on. Iirc between ME:2 and ME:3, or possible while Shepard was dead during 2 the citadel council made first contact with a brand new spacefaring race called the Raloi, an avian or bird-like race who had to wear enviro suits to protect them from avian influenzas. Anyway it’s super early in the contact. A small delegation visits the citadel between 2 and 3. When the Reaper war begins, they instantly decide they want no part in any of this. They flee home, and Destroy all their Satelites in orbit and their ships to try to hide from the Reapers. So for them, I fair to say the Dark Forest came true faster than for anyone else, and they tried to manifest it. I don’t think they would have been successful though, as they hit the news. Not much chance of hiding from the Reapers after that.
31:40 I don't remember this scene
To control is a folly, to merge is to join, and, to have no effect is waste. So, option 1 - 'Destroy'. Great video, thanks.
“That’s what the Geth believe”
First game they said the truth.
Unless you assume the Geth would lie about that 😂 artificial life fabricating mythological beings? Not likely
Lazy writing on what every AI becomes? I get it's their story - not yours!
And is why we kept the SDF-1...
Why transport people in suspended animation to only strip them down to liquefied soup?
We need more evidence before we act sowy
'Remove all evidence of their presence, not even a whisper remains'
Apart from the entire dead Reaper you visit in the second game because Bioware realised the entire second game had nothing about the Reapers in it. Talk about crowbarring in a lore breaking plot device because you f*cked up. 😂
Bible part was cringe af
Look up the word 'chthonic', you used it wrong. It refers to the earth/afterlife, not cthulhu. Chthonic creatures would NOT come from an ocean.
I know what it means and disagree. If u track the influences on all these concepts, and what the writers are going for with the Leviathans and then the Reapers, they are the actual beings that were worshipped as cthonic gods, deep underwater and underworld isn't a fine clear line, and our "souls" live on in the Reaper as sorts of bubble afterlife realms
Concept of god in Christianity is illogical i-e jesus being son of god . if god came to the world whats the point of this world ? faith mean believe in unseen if you see god thn where did faith came into this .
As a Muslim we believe when this world is over we are transfer to another dimension we called after life where we will be asked about who did we worship . three questions if we pass we will live thr till the judgment day and we will be judge according to our deeds on that day we will be resurrected in our physical body even our umbilical cord be attacked meaning clone body .
Our situation is completely different - the bones of the old world is all we have to wonder about: and we won't ever be able to turn them on.