How Will Shepard Beat the Reapers? (Minor Mass Effect Spoilers)

[Kingsnake661]

Your assuming it's a plot hole. It MIGHT be. It might NOT. The plot isn't finished yet. Your assuming the reapers should just be able to take over the tech, why? Because they said they created it? And you belived them because? The fact he couldn't just take over may well not be a plot hole but a clue.

Not even a plot hole; we are explicitly told why this is the case by Vigil.

The human fleet was pulled together by Joker, and the normandy, how were still left behind at Illos. The call for help came from them, not the cidital. Notice the Asari was suprided to see the humans.

Good catch, that had not occurred to me.

Why attack earth? Well, fight and formost there was going to be fight anyways. They couldn't just SNEAK past earth and use the realy, we prolly have it guarded. Moving Thousands of ships through will take time, and, like i said before, Shepard has shown the reapers who dangerious earthlings can BE, so maybe a preempive strike on earth while on the way to the cidial would make since. They are already there, may as well take us up. Heck, if they do it fast enought we might not be able to warn anyone else. To bad Shepard was there and gets away. We don't KNOW what the reapers a doing yet outside of attacking earth. We'll find out in ME3. My moneys on trying to get to the citidal. But if it's closed up, they might not be able too.

And rememeber, they whole reaper fleet isn't filled with Severigen type ships. This has been confirmed by bioware and you can SEE it yourself in some of the videos they've posted. More then likely Severigen was a capital ship, one of there more powerful left behind to ensure there plan/survivle. You don't leave a job like that to anyone except your best man. The fleet that's coming is far more powerful then anything the galaxie has ever faced, and thats why this is going to be a brutel, destructive war, but they AREN'T as powerful as you may be thinking they are. Not to mention we don't KNOW what the effect of the long trip they took will have on them.

I mean, think about it. There plan A was to use the citidal for a quick cupdagras. That faild. Plan B was to build a new reaper, in our galaxie, more then likely to try a run at the citidal again. That faild. Plan C was to use the closest realy possible, a special relay that could get them stright to the citidal. It was there on purpose to give them a short cut. They accually using there FTL to get to known space was a last resort, prolly for a REASON. A reason that we can exploit.

All very good points, nicely done.

Thanks, i've given this prolly more though then I should have... but work gets slow sometimes.. >.>

Anyways, i do feel the need to point out, or at least clearify, that i'm not in any way saying WE(the good guys) have an kind of advantage in this fight. We are still facing a *nearly* impossible challange. The odds are against us. Make no mistake. I'm just trying to argue that we have a *sliver* of hope for victory.

IF, Shepard can get the whole galaxie on the same page. Get them to resist the natural aurge to pull there forces back to there home worlds and bunker down. Something that'd result in the reapers getting excatily what they wanted in the first place.

IF Shepard can get the races to work together, that means Geth with Quarrian, Krogen with Turrians/Saliarens... Batarrains with human, ect...

IF he can pull that off, get a unifited force, THEN we have a *chance*. Make no mistake, the "perfect" or best ending will hopefully be hard to pull off. It should be. And even then, it should reflect the fact that we just "barely" won, cause that's the best we can hope for. IMO of course. Bittersweet.

 

[Avatar Roku]

Your assuming it's a plot hole. It MIGHT be. It might NOT. The plot isn't finished yet. Your assuming the reapers should just be able to take over the tech, why? Because they said they created it? And you belived them because? The fact he couldn't just take over may well not be a plot hole but a clue.

Not even a plot hole; we are explicitly told why this is the case by Vigil.

The human fleet was pulled together by Joker, and the normandy, how were still left behind at Illos. The call for help came from them, not the cidital. Notice the Asari was suprided to see the humans.

Good catch, that had not occurred to me.

Why attack earth? Well, fight and formost there was going to be fight anyways. They couldn't just SNEAK past earth and use the realy, we prolly have it guarded. Moving Thousands of ships through will take time, and, like i said before, Shepard has shown the reapers who dangerious earthlings can BE, so maybe a preempive strike on earth while on the way to the cidial would make since. They are already there, may as well take us up. Heck, if they do it fast enought we might not be able to warn anyone else. To bad Shepard was there and gets away. We don't KNOW what the reapers a doing yet outside of attacking earth. We'll find out in ME3. My moneys on trying to get to the citidal. But if it's closed up, they might not be able too.

And rememeber, they whole reaper fleet isn't filled with Severigen type ships. This has been confirmed by bioware and you can SEE it yourself in some of the videos they've posted. More then likely Severigen was a capital ship, one of there more powerful left behind to ensure there plan/survivle. You don't leave a job like that to anyone except your best man. The fleet that's coming is far more powerful then anything the galaxie has ever faced, and thats why this is going to be a brutel, destructive war, but they AREN'T as powerful as you may be thinking they are. Not to mention we don't KNOW what the effect of the long trip they took will have on them.

I mean, think about it. There plan A was to use the citidal for a quick cupdagras. That faild. Plan B was to build a new reaper, in our galaxie, more then likely to try a run at the citidal again. That faild. Plan C was to use the closest realy possible, a special relay that could get them stright to the citidal. It was there on purpose to give them a short cut. They accually using there FTL to get to known space was a last resort, prolly for a REASON. A reason that we can exploit.

All very good points, nicely done.

Thanks, i've given this prolly more though then I should have... but work gets slow sometimes.. >.>

Anyways, i do feel the need to point out, or at least clearify, that i'm not in any way saying WE(the good guys) have an kind of advantage in this fight. We are still facing a *nearly* impossible challange. The odds are against us. Make no mistake. I'm just trying to argue that we have a *sliver* of hope for victory.

IF, Shepard can get the whole galaxie on the same page. Get them to resist the natural aurge to pull there forces back to there home worlds and bunker down. Something that'd result in the reapers getting excatily what they wanted in the first place.

IF Shepard can get the races to work together, that means Geth with Quarrian, Krogen with Turrians/Saliarens... Batarrains with human, ect...

IF he can pull that off, get a unifited force, THEN we have a *chance*. Make no mistake, the "perfect" or best ending will hopefully be hard to pull off. It should be. And even then, it should reflect the fact that we just "barely" won, cause that's the best we can hope for. IMO of course. Bittersweet.

Yeah, I hear you. It's not a sure thing by any means, it's just not nearly as hopeless as some would have you believe.

I cannot overstate the importance of the Quarians, Geth, and Rachni. Those 3 factions are complete game changers when compared to the forces at the Battle of the Citadel. With such massive fleets on our side (plus ground troops from the Geth, Rachni, and Krogan, possibly Spec Ops troops from the Quarians, Turians, etc), the odds do shift a bit.

 

[Worgen]

She will find a big red button that says don't push and she will push it and all the reapers will become subservient and work at mcdonalds for the next 50k years.

Really I dont see anyway this is going to end other then finding a magic mcguffen and it somehow beating all the reapers, with the setup the 3rd game has. Really the game should be about organizing the races into a fleet and finding a way into deep space to kill most of them while they are still sleeping, have a few wake up before they are wiped out and have that be the epic final battle, where it takes most of the fleets to deal with a few reapers and one of those reapers is infiltrated and taken down by Shepard's team, while the others are either taken down by similar infiltration teams or blown to hell by dreadnoughts.

I think that is exactly what the game WILL be about. Think about the allies we have (possibly) been recruiting. The Krogan, the Quarians, the Geth, the Rachni. All of those but the Quarians are renowned for terrestrial combat prowess (good for boarding reapers, for example), and all of them but the Krogans are renowned for strong fleets (hell, the Quarians have the largest one in the known galaxy, and the Geth fleet that followed Saren was only about 5% of the total Geth strength). And that's to say nothing of what a you could do with the Citadel and Alliance Fleets when they fight the Reapers at full strength and while not surprised.

I bet Mass Effect 3 will mostly be spent making sure that those allies are at full strength. Convincing the Quarians and Geth to make peace (or choosing between them, which Keelah knows I don't want to do), convincing the Salarians to lift the Genophage, scouting the Reapers so that the big fleets are not taken by surprise, etc.

Few things to keep in mind.

1. We've come to find out, more or less, that not all reapers are the BIG, capital ships Sovereign was. Granted, there are prolly alot of them big ships, but in general, it's not a fleet of "Sovereigns" like it's been made out to be.

2. Sovereign was taken down, more or less, but one wing, or fleet of earth ships, not the whole earth navy, and what was left of a suprise attack on the citidal that started with them knocking out communations so they couldn't call for help. There were alot more reinforcments to be had, if they'd known they were under attack in the first place.

3. The reapers are burning ALOT of resorces and fuel to make the trip to the cidital. Not only did they have to come back from dark space, but once the alpha relay was blown, that added possible up to a years worth more FTL travel, which has to be taxing.

So i think there's a SLIGHT misconception as to how powerful the reaper fleet really is, IE, they aren't all Sovereigns, and are buring ALOT of resorces right now, and we aren't as WEAK as we seemed. It was a suprise attack, and a fraction of the galaxies full milatery might. A head on fight, with the WHOLE galaxie, as in, EVERYONE, might be more then the reapers can handle.

After all, all reapers invasions START with a sneak attack that cripples interstaller travel. where they can pick apart picemeal resistince one system at a time. That won't be the case this time. It's going to be a head on fight, after a long exidos, with a unitifed galaxie (once i'm done with them). Something they may well have NEVER faced before.

And of course, there may be a magic Maguffin. That can always happen to if the writers get lazy... >.>

On that subject, we've been told that there is one set piece in ME3 wherein a Thresher Maw fights a Reaper, so they really all better NOT be Sovereign's size, or else Sci Fi Writers Have No Sense OF Scale.

No, unfortinatly according to everything I have seen about the game so far, it starts out with the reapers invading and attacking earth and Shepard is able to escape and tries to round up allies to counter attack but each race is involved with its own stupid shit, like the quarians have decided to retake the homeworld.
This is the trailer.
If it wasn't for the space ships you would think it was a cod clone.
So ME3 has the reapers already here and that should be bad ending, I mean unless they retcon the reapers to suck, I don't see how they are saving earth.

According to the Game Informer article on ME3 from a few months ago, part of the game involves solving a conflict between the Salarians and the Krogan (that was just one example given), which to me smacks of gathering allies in the sense of entire armies and fleets, not just his squad. Also keep in mind, if the events of ME2 are any indication, the Reapers will want live humans, so they'll probably be on Earth for a while after actually winning the battle there. That extends the time frame immensely.

As I see it, Shep is at Earth answering for the events of Arrival, and then the Reapers invade. Act 1 will be fighting to get off Earth. Act 2 (i.e, the Act in every Bioware game where you choose where to go) will be gathering Armies and Fleets of allies (by, for example, convincing the Salarians to lift the Genophage, or making peace between the Geth and Quarians [or helping one side win]), that sort of thing. Then Act 3 will be taking all of your allies and either trying to take back Earth or else attacking wherever the Reapers are at that point.

Which is why the plot will be bad or the reapers will have to be retconned to hell since so far its been established that we are using tech that they control, mainly the gates which are the key to intergalactic travel, the only one they don't control is that lil one that links the promethium world to the citadel, all they need to do is either shut down the gate to sol, station a fleet outside the gate so they can nuke anything that comes though or just blow or just blow up the gate and then nothing is getting though. Not to mention that the reapers have been doing this awhile so they know pretty much how the tech of the races will work and where species will be and since they have spies they will even know fleet size and such, really the only reason this invasion is different is because they weren't woken up by the keepers since the promethians managed to stop them from being able to send a message this time.
The only plot that really would make sense is to attack them in deep space, any other way of fighting them seems doomed, without the plot going wacky.

I think you misunderstood. Talk to Vigil on Ilos again. They only controlled all the Relays in the other invasions because they took over the Citadel first thing, and the Citadel gave them that control (along with census records and such). Since you stopped them from using the Citadel Relay, they are at a MASSIVE disadvantage, since they cannot control our fleet movements anymore. Add to that the fact that, for the first time ever, there will be an entire galaxy already aware of them and amassed to fight them and it won't even take a retcon.

Since they shut down the relays in the past, they only ever had to fight small forces at once (i.e, whatever forces would have been stationed at individual systems). Moreover, they had records of which fleets were where, so they could always attack in overwhelming strength. Their control of the Citadel was always their single largest advantage, and without that, they're just a fleet (possibly an enormous one, but we don't really know) of very tough ships; a hard target, to be sure, but we have giant fleets too.

Ehh, not exactly, I mean if they need the Citadel to control the relays then they should really attack the citadel first, if they no longer have way to control the relays then they could either just blockade the relay or just destroy it. I mean they might not have control over them but they still know exactly where a counter attack will come from and its not like they are really bound by time, I mean they could just knock out a relay, wipe out the system then travel though standard space to the next and it would be almost impossible to know where they would hit next.

Also we aren't sure how unified the galaxy is against them, I mean assuming the council or whatever was telling the truth at the start of ME2, then they still don't really believe that the reapers are out there. I'm going to assume that they don't really believe the reaper threat since you have to help the races though their drama before they help you, if they knew there was a giant intergalactic threat coming then they probably wouldn't be doing stupid shit right before it.

While you are right that they could just blow up a mass relay and destroy a the systems in the area there are a few problems with them doing that. The reapers most likely do not have an infinite source of energy and just traveling all the way out from dark space probably ate up much of their energy. Based on what vigil said the reapers strip planets of their natural resources probably because they need it for fuel/energy.

If they blow up the mass relays along with all the star systems and their life forms then the Reapers lose valuable resources and the means to travel over a great distance without using up too much energy. It should also be noted that the mass relays are a vital part of the Reaper's technology that allowed the growth and expansion of multiple civilizations, such as the Protheans, to reach the point where the Reapers would harvest them.

While the reapers could attack the citadel directly they would probably not have the luxury of using the mass relays and therefore would have to spend much time and energy to get there which they may not have. As a result they would have to stop at nearby planets to harvest them in order to refuel.

And true, the galaxy isn't exactly united at the moment, hell there is basically a war brewing between the humans and batarians. Still once the massive reaper fleet starts blowing shit up maybe the galaxy will decide to unite against a common enemy, as long as the reapers aren't on the Citadel's doorstep by then.

It really doesn't matter how united anyone is if the reapers manage to take control of the gates, since they could just shut down all fast interstellar travel and pick apart races one by one, really the stupidest thing they could do is announce their presents by attacking a home world and not going for the lynch-pin at the start. But if energy is a worry they could just go to systems without gates and harvest as much as they like, I mean I'm assuming that's how they got back into the galaxy anyway since the gate they used, the citadel wasn't opened.... really why are they able to attack earth at all, I mean shouldn't it take them at least 200 years to get back into the galaxy and by then their Shepard problem has already solved itself.

But they can't just take control of the lynch pin yet because the Alpha Relay was destroyed. It seems, judging by our in-game galaxy map (which, being fair, is lacking in detail) that the Local Cluster (in which Earth is) is the closest to the one where the Alpha Relay was. They're gonna have to go through Sol if they want to get to the Citadel in a timely manner (and possibly before running out of fuel), so they may as well kill two birds with one stone and take out Earth at the same time.

As for your other point, it seems that the Reapers are really fucking fast, even compared to normal ships (which travel at roughly 4000 times the speed of light when going FTL between systems without Mass Relays). I mean, in 2 years, they went from waaaaaaaay out in Dark Space to the Outer Rim, which means they can really book it. Obviously Relays are faster, but their normal FTL (wasteful of resources as it probably is) can still get the job done.

However, if given a choice between a Relay or none, they are obviously going to choose a Relay. I bet FTL for them is very wasteful and, comparatively fast as their FTL is, it's still gonna take them months if not years to go from the system which formerly housed the Alpha Relay to the Citadel.

If they can get to earth then they can go to any system without a gate that they want to, to refuel, even if they have to go to earth its stupid to attack it, if they need the local cluster gate then they should just quickly use the gate to get to the citadel, hanging around and destroying earth with out securing or destroying the gate is very stupid, the last thing they would want is to let everyone know they are there.

Friend... they aren't just going to "sneak" by... it's an armadia of huge, sentient space ships, and while there main goal i'm sure is to get to the citidal and lock it down, don't forget that thanks to Shepards bad@ssery they now consider the human race to be the most dangerious of all the races in the current galaxie. Taking them off guard and out asap is a smart tactical move.

Not to mention the fact your really taking into account the fuel they have burnt, would have to still burn to get to the cidital undetected if they forwent the gates, and the fact that the "fuel" they need may well not be found in just any system. They seem to harvest advanced civilations for a reason. And empty system may not have what they need, esspecially for a fleet. Sure, attacking earth might not be the "best" tactical decession they can make, the citidal would be, but, they very well may not have a choice, and this is the best they can do.

This isn't there Plan A attack. We thawarted that. And Plan B and C too. This is plan D, and it's never as good as plan A. LOL.

Space isn't a canyon pass, space is huge and mostly empty, they would have no problem sneaking anywhere with a huge armada as long as they avoided systems without gates since gates are the only real way for species to expand or communicate, they could wipe out countless species from worlds without gates and it would be hundreds of years before anyone got any distress signals. As for the whole refueling thing, they really only need to find a gas giant and a rocky world to fuel up and discharge the drive core, granted a refueling station around it would probably help but chances are the reapers would have some self contained way of extracting what they need for fuel. Going by the galactic map the local cluster isn't physically far from the citadel... relatively speaking, so they could just go to one or the other.

 

[Avatar Roku]

She will find a big red button that says don't push and she will push it and all the reapers will become subservient and work at mcdonalds for the next 50k years.

Really I dont see anyway this is going to end other then finding a magic mcguffen and it somehow beating all the reapers, with the setup the 3rd game has. Really the game should be about organizing the races into a fleet and finding a way into deep space to kill most of them while they are still sleeping, have a few wake up before they are wiped out and have that be the epic final battle, where it takes most of the fleets to deal with a few reapers and one of those reapers is infiltrated and taken down by Shepard's team, while the others are either taken down by similar infiltration teams or blown to hell by dreadnoughts.

I think that is exactly what the game WILL be about. Think about the allies we have (possibly) been recruiting. The Krogan, the Quarians, the Geth, the Rachni. All of those but the Quarians are renowned for terrestrial combat prowess (good for boarding reapers, for example), and all of them but the Krogans are renowned for strong fleets (hell, the Quarians have the largest one in the known galaxy, and the Geth fleet that followed Saren was only about 5% of the total Geth strength). And that's to say nothing of what a you could do with the Citadel and Alliance Fleets when they fight the Reapers at full strength and while not surprised.

I bet Mass Effect 3 will mostly be spent making sure that those allies are at full strength. Convincing the Quarians and Geth to make peace (or choosing between them, which Keelah knows I don't want to do), convincing the Salarians to lift the Genophage, scouting the Reapers so that the big fleets are not taken by surprise, etc.

Few things to keep in mind.

1. We've come to find out, more or less, that not all reapers are the BIG, capital ships Sovereign was. Granted, there are prolly alot of them big ships, but in general, it's not a fleet of "Sovereigns" like it's been made out to be.

2. Sovereign was taken down, more or less, but one wing, or fleet of earth ships, not the whole earth navy, and what was left of a suprise attack on the citidal that started with them knocking out communations so they couldn't call for help. There were alot more reinforcments to be had, if they'd known they were under attack in the first place.

3. The reapers are burning ALOT of resorces and fuel to make the trip to the cidital. Not only did they have to come back from dark space, but once the alpha relay was blown, that added possible up to a years worth more FTL travel, which has to be taxing.

So i think there's a SLIGHT misconception as to how powerful the reaper fleet really is, IE, they aren't all Sovereigns, and are buring ALOT of resorces right now, and we aren't as WEAK as we seemed. It was a suprise attack, and a fraction of the galaxies full milatery might. A head on fight, with the WHOLE galaxie, as in, EVERYONE, might be more then the reapers can handle.

After all, all reapers invasions START with a sneak attack that cripples interstaller travel. where they can pick apart picemeal resistince one system at a time. That won't be the case this time. It's going to be a head on fight, after a long exidos, with a unitifed galaxie (once i'm done with them). Something they may well have NEVER faced before.

And of course, there may be a magic Maguffin. That can always happen to if the writers get lazy... >.>

On that subject, we've been told that there is one set piece in ME3 wherein a Thresher Maw fights a Reaper, so they really all better NOT be Sovereign's size, or else Sci Fi Writers Have No Sense OF Scale.

No, unfortinatly according to everything I have seen about the game so far, it starts out with the reapers invading and attacking earth and Shepard is able to escape and tries to round up allies to counter attack but each race is involved with its own stupid shit, like the quarians have decided to retake the homeworld.
This is the trailer.
If it wasn't for the space ships you would think it was a cod clone.
So ME3 has the reapers already here and that should be bad ending, I mean unless they retcon the reapers to suck, I don't see how they are saving earth.

According to the Game Informer article on ME3 from a few months ago, part of the game involves solving a conflict between the Salarians and the Krogan (that was just one example given), which to me smacks of gathering allies in the sense of entire armies and fleets, not just his squad. Also keep in mind, if the events of ME2 are any indication, the Reapers will want live humans, so they'll probably be on Earth for a while after actually winning the battle there. That extends the time frame immensely.

As I see it, Shep is at Earth answering for the events of Arrival, and then the Reapers invade. Act 1 will be fighting to get off Earth. Act 2 (i.e, the Act in every Bioware game where you choose where to go) will be gathering Armies and Fleets of allies (by, for example, convincing the Salarians to lift the Genophage, or making peace between the Geth and Quarians [or helping one side win]), that sort of thing. Then Act 3 will be taking all of your allies and either trying to take back Earth or else attacking wherever the Reapers are at that point.

Which is why the plot will be bad or the reapers will have to be retconned to hell since so far its been established that we are using tech that they control, mainly the gates which are the key to intergalactic travel, the only one they don't control is that lil one that links the promethium world to the citadel, all they need to do is either shut down the gate to sol, station a fleet outside the gate so they can nuke anything that comes though or just blow or just blow up the gate and then nothing is getting though. Not to mention that the reapers have been doing this awhile so they know pretty much how the tech of the races will work and where species will be and since they have spies they will even know fleet size and such, really the only reason this invasion is different is because they weren't woken up by the keepers since the promethians managed to stop them from being able to send a message this time.
The only plot that really would make sense is to attack them in deep space, any other way of fighting them seems doomed, without the plot going wacky.

I think you misunderstood. Talk to Vigil on Ilos again. They only controlled all the Relays in the other invasions because they took over the Citadel first thing, and the Citadel gave them that control (along with census records and such). Since you stopped them from using the Citadel Relay, they are at a MASSIVE disadvantage, since they cannot control our fleet movements anymore. Add to that the fact that, for the first time ever, there will be an entire galaxy already aware of them and amassed to fight them and it won't even take a retcon.

Since they shut down the relays in the past, they only ever had to fight small forces at once (i.e, whatever forces would have been stationed at individual systems). Moreover, they had records of which fleets were where, so they could always attack in overwhelming strength. Their control of the Citadel was always their single largest advantage, and without that, they're just a fleet (possibly an enormous one, but we don't really know) of very tough ships; a hard target, to be sure, but we have giant fleets too.

Ehh, not exactly, I mean if they need the Citadel to control the relays then they should really attack the citadel first, if they no longer have way to control the relays then they could either just blockade the relay or just destroy it. I mean they might not have control over them but they still know exactly where a counter attack will come from and its not like they are really bound by time, I mean they could just knock out a relay, wipe out the system then travel though standard space to the next and it would be almost impossible to know where they would hit next.

Also we aren't sure how unified the galaxy is against them, I mean assuming the council or whatever was telling the truth at the start of ME2, then they still don't really believe that the reapers are out there. I'm going to assume that they don't really believe the reaper threat since you have to help the races though their drama before they help you, if they knew there was a giant intergalactic threat coming then they probably wouldn't be doing stupid shit right before it.

While you are right that they could just blow up a mass relay and destroy a the systems in the area there are a few problems with them doing that. The reapers most likely do not have an infinite source of energy and just traveling all the way out from dark space probably ate up much of their energy. Based on what vigil said the reapers strip planets of their natural resources probably because they need it for fuel/energy.

If they blow up the mass relays along with all the star systems and their life forms then the Reapers lose valuable resources and the means to travel over a great distance without using up too much energy. It should also be noted that the mass relays are a vital part of the Reaper's technology that allowed the growth and expansion of multiple civilizations, such as the Protheans, to reach the point where the Reapers would harvest them.

While the reapers could attack the citadel directly they would probably not have the luxury of using the mass relays and therefore would have to spend much time and energy to get there which they may not have. As a result they would have to stop at nearby planets to harvest them in order to refuel.

And true, the galaxy isn't exactly united at the moment, hell there is basically a war brewing between the humans and batarians. Still once the massive reaper fleet starts blowing shit up maybe the galaxy will decide to unite against a common enemy, as long as the reapers aren't on the Citadel's doorstep by then.

It really doesn't matter how united anyone is if the reapers manage to take control of the gates, since they could just shut down all fast interstellar travel and pick apart races one by one, really the stupidest thing they could do is announce their presents by attacking a home world and not going for the lynch-pin at the start. But if energy is a worry they could just go to systems without gates and harvest as much as they like, I mean I'm assuming that's how they got back into the galaxy anyway since the gate they used, the citadel wasn't opened.... really why are they able to attack earth at all, I mean shouldn't it take them at least 200 years to get back into the galaxy and by then their Shepard problem has already solved itself.

But they can't just take control of the lynch pin yet because the Alpha Relay was destroyed. It seems, judging by our in-game galaxy map (which, being fair, is lacking in detail) that the Local Cluster (in which Earth is) is the closest to the one where the Alpha Relay was. They're gonna have to go through Sol if they want to get to the Citadel in a timely manner (and possibly before running out of fuel), so they may as well kill two birds with one stone and take out Earth at the same time.

As for your other point, it seems that the Reapers are really fucking fast, even compared to normal ships (which travel at roughly 4000 times the speed of light when going FTL between systems without Mass Relays). I mean, in 2 years, they went from waaaaaaaay out in Dark Space to the Outer Rim, which means they can really book it. Obviously Relays are faster, but their normal FTL (wasteful of resources as it probably is) can still get the job done.

However, if given a choice between a Relay or none, they are obviously going to choose a Relay. I bet FTL for them is very wasteful and, comparatively fast as their FTL is, it's still gonna take them months if not years to go from the system which formerly housed the Alpha Relay to the Citadel.

If they can get to earth then they can go to any system without a gate that they want to, to refuel, even if they have to go to earth its stupid to attack it, if they need the local cluster gate then they should just quickly use the gate to get to the citadel, hanging around and destroying earth with out securing or destroying the gate is very stupid, the last thing they would want is to let everyone know they are there.

Friend... they aren't just going to "sneak" by... it's an armadia of huge, sentient space ships, and while there main goal i'm sure is to get to the citidal and lock it down, don't forget that thanks to Shepards bad@ssery they now consider the human race to be the most dangerious of all the races in the current galaxie. Taking them off guard and out asap is a smart tactical move.

Not to mention the fact your really taking into account the fuel they have burnt, would have to still burn to get to the cidital undetected if they forwent the gates, and the fact that the "fuel" they need may well not be found in just any system. They seem to harvest advanced civilations for a reason. And empty system may not have what they need, esspecially for a fleet. Sure, attacking earth might not be the "best" tactical decession they can make, the citidal would be, but, they very well may not have a choice, and this is the best they can do.

This isn't there Plan A attack. We thawarted that. And Plan B and C too. This is plan D, and it's never as good as plan A. LOL.

Space isn't a canyon pass, space is huge and mostly empty, they would have no problem sneaking anywhere with a huge armada as long as they avoided systems without gates since gates are the only real way for species to expand or communicate, they could wipe out countless species from worlds without gates and it would be hundreds of years before anyone got any distress signals. As for the whole refueling thing, they really only need to find a gas giant and a rocky world to fuel up and discharge the drive core, granted a refueling station around it would probably help but chances are the reapers would have some self contained way of extracting what they need for fuel. Going by the galactic map the local cluster isn't physically far from the citadel... relatively speaking, so they could just go to one or the other.

I think that we're all being a bit presumptuous at this point. It could well be that there is an actual, explained reason for them being on Earth in ME3, but obviously none of us have played it yet. We'll have to see.

 

[Worgen]

She will find a big red button that says don't push and she will push it and all the reapers will become subservient and work at mcdonalds for the next 50k years.

Really I dont see anyway this is going to end other then finding a magic mcguffen and it somehow beating all the reapers, with the setup the 3rd game has. Really the game should be about organizing the races into a fleet and finding a way into deep space to kill most of them while they are still sleeping, have a few wake up before they are wiped out and have that be the epic final battle, where it takes most of the fleets to deal with a few reapers and one of those reapers is infiltrated and taken down by Shepard's team, while the others are either taken down by similar infiltration teams or blown to hell by dreadnoughts.

I think that is exactly what the game WILL be about. Think about the allies we have (possibly) been recruiting. The Krogan, the Quarians, the Geth, the Rachni. All of those but the Quarians are renowned for terrestrial combat prowess (good for boarding reapers, for example), and all of them but the Krogans are renowned for strong fleets (hell, the Quarians have the largest one in the known galaxy, and the Geth fleet that followed Saren was only about 5% of the total Geth strength). And that's to say nothing of what a you could do with the Citadel and Alliance Fleets when they fight the Reapers at full strength and while not surprised.

I bet Mass Effect 3 will mostly be spent making sure that those allies are at full strength. Convincing the Quarians and Geth to make peace (or choosing between them, which Keelah knows I don't want to do), convincing the Salarians to lift the Genophage, scouting the Reapers so that the big fleets are not taken by surprise, etc.

Few things to keep in mind.

1. We've come to find out, more or less, that not all reapers are the BIG, capital ships Sovereign was. Granted, there are prolly alot of them big ships, but in general, it's not a fleet of "Sovereigns" like it's been made out to be.

2. Sovereign was taken down, more or less, but one wing, or fleet of earth ships, not the whole earth navy, and what was left of a suprise attack on the citidal that started with them knocking out communations so they couldn't call for help. There were alot more reinforcments to be had, if they'd known they were under attack in the first place.

3. The reapers are burning ALOT of resorces and fuel to make the trip to the cidital. Not only did they have to come back from dark space, but once the alpha relay was blown, that added possible up to a years worth more FTL travel, which has to be taxing.

So i think there's a SLIGHT misconception as to how powerful the reaper fleet really is, IE, they aren't all Sovereigns, and are buring ALOT of resorces right now, and we aren't as WEAK as we seemed. It was a suprise attack, and a fraction of the galaxies full milatery might. A head on fight, with the WHOLE galaxie, as in, EVERYONE, might be more then the reapers can handle.

After all, all reapers invasions START with a sneak attack that cripples interstaller travel. where they can pick apart picemeal resistince one system at a time. That won't be the case this time. It's going to be a head on fight, after a long exidos, with a unitifed galaxie (once i'm done with them). Something they may well have NEVER faced before.

And of course, there may be a magic Maguffin. That can always happen to if the writers get lazy... >.>

On that subject, we've been told that there is one set piece in ME3 wherein a Thresher Maw fights a Reaper, so they really all better NOT be Sovereign's size, or else Sci Fi Writers Have No Sense OF Scale.

No, unfortinatly according to everything I have seen about the game so far, it starts out with the reapers invading and attacking earth and Shepard is able to escape and tries to round up allies to counter attack but each race is involved with its own stupid shit, like the quarians have decided to retake the homeworld.
This is the trailer.
If it wasn't for the space ships you would think it was a cod clone.
So ME3 has the reapers already here and that should be bad ending, I mean unless they retcon the reapers to suck, I don't see how they are saving earth.

According to the Game Informer article on ME3 from a few months ago, part of the game involves solving a conflict between the Salarians and the Krogan (that was just one example given), which to me smacks of gathering allies in the sense of entire armies and fleets, not just his squad. Also keep in mind, if the events of ME2 are any indication, the Reapers will want live humans, so they'll probably be on Earth for a while after actually winning the battle there. That extends the time frame immensely.

As I see it, Shep is at Earth answering for the events of Arrival, and then the Reapers invade. Act 1 will be fighting to get off Earth. Act 2 (i.e, the Act in every Bioware game where you choose where to go) will be gathering Armies and Fleets of allies (by, for example, convincing the Salarians to lift the Genophage, or making peace between the Geth and Quarians [or helping one side win]), that sort of thing. Then Act 3 will be taking all of your allies and either trying to take back Earth or else attacking wherever the Reapers are at that point.

Which is why the plot will be bad or the reapers will have to be retconned to hell since so far its been established that we are using tech that they control, mainly the gates which are the key to intergalactic travel, the only one they don't control is that lil one that links the promethium world to the citadel, all they need to do is either shut down the gate to sol, station a fleet outside the gate so they can nuke anything that comes though or just blow or just blow up the gate and then nothing is getting though. Not to mention that the reapers have been doing this awhile so they know pretty much how the tech of the races will work and where species will be and since they have spies they will even know fleet size and such, really the only reason this invasion is different is because they weren't woken up by the keepers since the promethians managed to stop them from being able to send a message this time.
The only plot that really would make sense is to attack them in deep space, any other way of fighting them seems doomed, without the plot going wacky.

I think you misunderstood. Talk to Vigil on Ilos again. They only controlled all the Relays in the other invasions because they took over the Citadel first thing, and the Citadel gave them that control (along with census records and such). Since you stopped them from using the Citadel Relay, they are at a MASSIVE disadvantage, since they cannot control our fleet movements anymore. Add to that the fact that, for the first time ever, there will be an entire galaxy already aware of them and amassed to fight them and it won't even take a retcon.

Since they shut down the relays in the past, they only ever had to fight small forces at once (i.e, whatever forces would have been stationed at individual systems). Moreover, they had records of which fleets were where, so they could always attack in overwhelming strength. Their control of the Citadel was always their single largest advantage, and without that, they're just a fleet (possibly an enormous one, but we don't really know) of very tough ships; a hard target, to be sure, but we have giant fleets too.

Ehh, not exactly, I mean if they need the Citadel to control the relays then they should really attack the citadel first, if they no longer have way to control the relays then they could either just blockade the relay or just destroy it. I mean they might not have control over them but they still know exactly where a counter attack will come from and its not like they are really bound by time, I mean they could just knock out a relay, wipe out the system then travel though standard space to the next and it would be almost impossible to know where they would hit next.

Also we aren't sure how unified the galaxy is against them, I mean assuming the council or whatever was telling the truth at the start of ME2, then they still don't really believe that the reapers are out there. I'm going to assume that they don't really believe the reaper threat since you have to help the races though their drama before they help you, if they knew there was a giant intergalactic threat coming then they probably wouldn't be doing stupid shit right before it.

While you are right that they could just blow up a mass relay and destroy a the systems in the area there are a few problems with them doing that. The reapers most likely do not have an infinite source of energy and just traveling all the way out from dark space probably ate up much of their energy. Based on what vigil said the reapers strip planets of their natural resources probably because they need it for fuel/energy.

If they blow up the mass relays along with all the star systems and their life forms then the Reapers lose valuable resources and the means to travel over a great distance without using up too much energy. It should also be noted that the mass relays are a vital part of the Reaper's technology that allowed the growth and expansion of multiple civilizations, such as the Protheans, to reach the point where the Reapers would harvest them.

While the reapers could attack the citadel directly they would probably not have the luxury of using the mass relays and therefore would have to spend much time and energy to get there which they may not have. As a result they would have to stop at nearby planets to harvest them in order to refuel.

And true, the galaxy isn't exactly united at the moment, hell there is basically a war brewing between the humans and batarians. Still once the massive reaper fleet starts blowing shit up maybe the galaxy will decide to unite against a common enemy, as long as the reapers aren't on the Citadel's doorstep by then.

It really doesn't matter how united anyone is if the reapers manage to take control of the gates, since they could just shut down all fast interstellar travel and pick apart races one by one, really the stupidest thing they could do is announce their presents by attacking a home world and not going for the lynch-pin at the start. But if energy is a worry they could just go to systems without gates and harvest as much as they like, I mean I'm assuming that's how they got back into the galaxy anyway since the gate they used, the citadel wasn't opened.... really why are they able to attack earth at all, I mean shouldn't it take them at least 200 years to get back into the galaxy and by then their Shepard problem has already solved itself.

But they can't just take control of the lynch pin yet because the Alpha Relay was destroyed. It seems, judging by our in-game galaxy map (which, being fair, is lacking in detail) that the Local Cluster (in which Earth is) is the closest to the one where the Alpha Relay was. They're gonna have to go through Sol if they want to get to the Citadel in a timely manner (and possibly before running out of fuel), so they may as well kill two birds with one stone and take out Earth at the same time.

As for your other point, it seems that the Reapers are really fucking fast, even compared to normal ships (which travel at roughly 4000 times the speed of light when going FTL between systems without Mass Relays). I mean, in 2 years, they went from waaaaaaaay out in Dark Space to the Outer Rim, which means they can really book it. Obviously Relays are faster, but their normal FTL (wasteful of resources as it probably is) can still get the job done.

However, if given a choice between a Relay or none, they are obviously going to choose a Relay. I bet FTL for them is very wasteful and, comparatively fast as their FTL is, it's still gonna take them months if not years to go from the system which formerly housed the Alpha Relay to the Citadel.

If they can get to earth then they can go to any system without a gate that they want to, to refuel, even if they have to go to earth its stupid to attack it, if they need the local cluster gate then they should just quickly use the gate to get to the citadel, hanging around and destroying earth with out securing or destroying the gate is very stupid, the last thing they would want is to let everyone know they are there.

Friend... they aren't just going to "sneak" by... it's an armadia of huge, sentient space ships, and while there main goal i'm sure is to get to the citidal and lock it down, don't forget that thanks to Shepards bad@ssery they now consider the human race to be the most dangerious of all the races in the current galaxie. Taking them off guard and out asap is a smart tactical move.

Not to mention the fact your really taking into account the fuel they have burnt, would have to still burn to get to the cidital undetected if they forwent the gates, and the fact that the "fuel" they need may well not be found in just any system. They seem to harvest advanced civilations for a reason. And empty system may not have what they need, esspecially for a fleet. Sure, attacking earth might not be the "best" tactical decession they can make, the citidal would be, but, they very well may not have a choice, and this is the best they can do.

This isn't there Plan A attack. We thawarted that. And Plan B and C too. This is plan D, and it's never as good as plan A. LOL.

Space isn't a canyon pass, space is huge and mostly empty, they would have no problem sneaking anywhere with a huge armada as long as they avoided systems without gates since gates are the only real way for species to expand or communicate, they could wipe out countless species from worlds without gates and it would be hundreds of years before anyone got any distress signals. As for the whole refueling thing, they really only need to find a gas giant and a rocky world to fuel up and discharge the drive core, granted a refueling station around it would probably help but chances are the reapers would have some self contained way of extracting what they need for fuel. Going by the galactic map the local cluster isn't physically far from the citadel... relatively speaking, so they could just go to one or the other.

I think that we're all being a bit presumptuous at this point. It could well be that there is an actual, explained reason for them being on Earth in ME3, but obviously none of us have played it yet. We'll have to see.

Its not that I don't think they will have a reason for the reapers attacking earth, I just think its going to be stupid, like the Russians invading the US. I guess its always possible that the reapers actual attack doesn't take place till near the end of the game but that's no the impression I get from the promos, and I don't see anyway that attacking earth makes military sense or anyway that they are going to manage to "save" earth, in a way that isn't stupid.

 

[Zhukov]

Its not that I don't think they will have a reason for the reapers attacking earth, I just think its going to be stupid, like the Russians invading the US. I guess its always possible that the reapers actual attack doesn't take place till near the end of the game but that's no the impression I get from the promos, and I don't see anyway that attacking earth makes military sense or anyway that they are going to manage to "save" earth, in a way that isn't stupid.

The attack on Earth happens near the beginning of ME3.

However, they aren't specifically attacking Earth. They're just coming from the "south" of the galaxy and systematically wiping out everything between them and the Citadel. They hit the Batarians first (note the presence of Batarian husks in the E3 preview footage of the first level). Earth is just the next inhabited planet in the way. During the game they also hit the homeworld of one of the major council races.

 

[Avatar Roku]

snip

Its not that I don't think they will have a reason for the reapers attacking earth, I just think its going to be stupid, like the Russians invading the US. I guess its always possible that the reapers actual attack doesn't take place till near the end of the game but that's no the impression I get from the promos, and I don't see anyway that attacking earth makes military sense or anyway that they are going to manage to "save" earth, in a way that isn't stupid.

We don't know their motives. The entire previous game was about how they wanted to capture humans, maybe that ties in to this. More likely:

Its not that I don't think they will have a reason for the reapers attacking earth, I just think its going to be stupid, like the Russians invading the US. I guess its always possible that the reapers actual attack doesn't take place till near the end of the game but that's no the impression I get from the promos, and I don't see anyway that attacking earth makes military sense or anyway that they are going to manage to "save" earth, in a way that isn't stupid.

The attack on Earth happens near the beginning of ME3.

However, they aren't specifically attacking Earth. They're just coming from the "south" of the galaxy and systematically wiping out everything between them and the Citadel. They hit the Batarians first (note the presence of Batarian husks in the E3 preview footage of the first level). Earth is just the next inhabited planet in the way. During the game they also hit the homeworld of one of the major council races.

This makes way more sense than anything I'd come up with. I mean, it speaks to the Reapers' arrogance, but then, they HAVE always been extremely arrogant.

On a side note, I'm excited to see Husks of other races. As I understand, there are even Rachni husks, that'll be interesting.

 

[Quigglebert]

Well thinking about it, Sovereign was destroyed by the combined effort of the Alliance and all the other groups, as well as the death of Saren Arterius. Now while not every Reaper has a Saren of their own (excluding Harbinger who had the Collectors) they must all still be capable of being killed. Now, based on Shepard's actions in ME2 regarding the Collector base, this may prove easier. Otherwise, its gonna take a helluva lotta ships and guns.

has everyone forgotton that sovereign had a geth fleet with him?

 

[Kingsnake661]

She will find a big red button that says don't push and she will push it and all the reapers will become subservient and work at mcdonalds for the next 50k years.

Really I dont see anyway this is going to end other then finding a magic mcguffen and it somehow beating all the reapers, with the setup the 3rd game has. Really the game should be about organizing the races into a fleet and finding a way into deep space to kill most of them while they are still sleeping, have a few wake up before they are wiped out and have that be the epic final battle, where it takes most of the fleets to deal with a few reapers and one of those reapers is infiltrated and taken down by Shepard's team, while the others are either taken down by similar infiltration teams or blown to hell by dreadnoughts.

I think that is exactly what the game WILL be about. Think about the allies we have (possibly) been recruiting. The Krogan, the Quarians, the Geth, the Rachni. All of those but the Quarians are renowned for terrestrial combat prowess (good for boarding reapers, for example), and all of them but the Krogans are renowned for strong fleets (hell, the Quarians have the largest one in the known galaxy, and the Geth fleet that followed Saren was only about 5% of the total Geth strength). And that's to say nothing of what a you could do with the Citadel and Alliance Fleets when they fight the Reapers at full strength and while not surprised.

I bet Mass Effect 3 will mostly be spent making sure that those allies are at full strength. Convincing the Quarians and Geth to make peace (or choosing between them, which Keelah knows I don't want to do), convincing the Salarians to lift the Genophage, scouting the Reapers so that the big fleets are not taken by surprise, etc.

Few things to keep in mind.

1. We've come to find out, more or less, that not all reapers are the BIG, capital ships Sovereign was. Granted, there are prolly alot of them big ships, but in general, it's not a fleet of "Sovereigns" like it's been made out to be.

2. Sovereign was taken down, more or less, but one wing, or fleet of earth ships, not the whole earth navy, and what was left of a suprise attack on the citidal that started with them knocking out communations so they couldn't call for help. There were alot more reinforcments to be had, if they'd known they were under attack in the first place.

3. The reapers are burning ALOT of resorces and fuel to make the trip to the cidital. Not only did they have to come back from dark space, but once the alpha relay was blown, that added possible up to a years worth more FTL travel, which has to be taxing.

So i think there's a SLIGHT misconception as to how powerful the reaper fleet really is, IE, they aren't all Sovereigns, and are buring ALOT of resorces right now, and we aren't as WEAK as we seemed. It was a suprise attack, and a fraction of the galaxies full milatery might. A head on fight, with the WHOLE galaxie, as in, EVERYONE, might be more then the reapers can handle.

After all, all reapers invasions START with a sneak attack that cripples interstaller travel. where they can pick apart picemeal resistince one system at a time. That won't be the case this time. It's going to be a head on fight, after a long exidos, with a unitifed galaxie (once i'm done with them). Something they may well have NEVER faced before.

And of course, there may be a magic Maguffin. That can always happen to if the writers get lazy... >.>

On that subject, we've been told that there is one set piece in ME3 wherein a Thresher Maw fights a Reaper, so they really all better NOT be Sovereign's size, or else Sci Fi Writers Have No Sense OF Scale.

No, unfortinatly according to everything I have seen about the game so far, it starts out with the reapers invading and attacking earth and Shepard is able to escape and tries to round up allies to counter attack but each race is involved with its own stupid shit, like the quarians have decided to retake the homeworld.
This is the trailer.
If it wasn't for the space ships you would think it was a cod clone.
So ME3 has the reapers already here and that should be bad ending, I mean unless they retcon the reapers to suck, I don't see how they are saving earth.

According to the Game Informer article on ME3 from a few months ago, part of the game involves solving a conflict between the Salarians and the Krogan (that was just one example given), which to me smacks of gathering allies in the sense of entire armies and fleets, not just his squad. Also keep in mind, if the events of ME2 are any indication, the Reapers will want live humans, so they'll probably be on Earth for a while after actually winning the battle there. That extends the time frame immensely.

As I see it, Shep is at Earth answering for the events of Arrival, and then the Reapers invade. Act 1 will be fighting to get off Earth. Act 2 (i.e, the Act in every Bioware game where you choose where to go) will be gathering Armies and Fleets of allies (by, for example, convincing the Salarians to lift the Genophage, or making peace between the Geth and Quarians [or helping one side win]), that sort of thing. Then Act 3 will be taking all of your allies and either trying to take back Earth or else attacking wherever the Reapers are at that point.

Which is why the plot will be bad or the reapers will have to be retconned to hell since so far its been established that we are using tech that they control, mainly the gates which are the key to intergalactic travel, the only one they don't control is that lil one that links the promethium world to the citadel, all they need to do is either shut down the gate to sol, station a fleet outside the gate so they can nuke anything that comes though or just blow or just blow up the gate and then nothing is getting though. Not to mention that the reapers have been doing this awhile so they know pretty much how the tech of the races will work and where species will be and since they have spies they will even know fleet size and such, really the only reason this invasion is different is because they weren't woken up by the keepers since the promethians managed to stop them from being able to send a message this time.
The only plot that really would make sense is to attack them in deep space, any other way of fighting them seems doomed, without the plot going wacky.

I think you misunderstood. Talk to Vigil on Ilos again. They only controlled all the Relays in the other invasions because they took over the Citadel first thing, and the Citadel gave them that control (along with census records and such). Since you stopped them from using the Citadel Relay, they are at a MASSIVE disadvantage, since they cannot control our fleet movements anymore. Add to that the fact that, for the first time ever, there will be an entire galaxy already aware of them and amassed to fight them and it won't even take a retcon.

Since they shut down the relays in the past, they only ever had to fight small forces at once (i.e, whatever forces would have been stationed at individual systems). Moreover, they had records of which fleets were where, so they could always attack in overwhelming strength. Their control of the Citadel was always their single largest advantage, and without that, they're just a fleet (possibly an enormous one, but we don't really know) of very tough ships; a hard target, to be sure, but we have giant fleets too.

Ehh, not exactly, I mean if they need the Citadel to control the relays then they should really attack the citadel first, if they no longer have way to control the relays then they could either just blockade the relay or just destroy it. I mean they might not have control over them but they still know exactly where a counter attack will come from and its not like they are really bound by time, I mean they could just knock out a relay, wipe out the system then travel though standard space to the next and it would be almost impossible to know where they would hit next.

Also we aren't sure how unified the galaxy is against them, I mean assuming the council or whatever was telling the truth at the start of ME2, then they still don't really believe that the reapers are out there. I'm going to assume that they don't really believe the reaper threat since you have to help the races though their drama before they help you, if they knew there was a giant intergalactic threat coming then they probably wouldn't be doing stupid shit right before it.

While you are right that they could just blow up a mass relay and destroy a the systems in the area there are a few problems with them doing that. The reapers most likely do not have an infinite source of energy and just traveling all the way out from dark space probably ate up much of their energy. Based on what vigil said the reapers strip planets of their natural resources probably because they need it for fuel/energy.

If they blow up the mass relays along with all the star systems and their life forms then the Reapers lose valuable resources and the means to travel over a great distance without using up too much energy. It should also be noted that the mass relays are a vital part of the Reaper's technology that allowed the growth and expansion of multiple civilizations, such as the Protheans, to reach the point where the Reapers would harvest them.

While the reapers could attack the citadel directly they would probably not have the luxury of using the mass relays and therefore would have to spend much time and energy to get there which they may not have. As a result they would have to stop at nearby planets to harvest them in order to refuel.

And true, the galaxy isn't exactly united at the moment, hell there is basically a war brewing between the humans and batarians. Still once the massive reaper fleet starts blowing shit up maybe the galaxy will decide to unite against a common enemy, as long as the reapers aren't on the Citadel's doorstep by then.

It really doesn't matter how united anyone is if the reapers manage to take control of the gates, since they could just shut down all fast interstellar travel and pick apart races one by one, really the stupidest thing they could do is announce their presents by attacking a home world and not going for the lynch-pin at the start. But if energy is a worry they could just go to systems without gates and harvest as much as they like, I mean I'm assuming that's how they got back into the galaxy anyway since the gate they used, the citadel wasn't opened.... really why are they able to attack earth at all, I mean shouldn't it take them at least 200 years to get back into the galaxy and by then their Shepard problem has already solved itself.

But they can't just take control of the lynch pin yet because the Alpha Relay was destroyed. It seems, judging by our in-game galaxy map (which, being fair, is lacking in detail) that the Local Cluster (in which Earth is) is the closest to the one where the Alpha Relay was. They're gonna have to go through Sol if they want to get to the Citadel in a timely manner (and possibly before running out of fuel), so they may as well kill two birds with one stone and take out Earth at the same time.

As for your other point, it seems that the Reapers are really fucking fast, even compared to normal ships (which travel at roughly 4000 times the speed of light when going FTL between systems without Mass Relays). I mean, in 2 years, they went from waaaaaaaay out in Dark Space to the Outer Rim, which means they can really book it. Obviously Relays are faster, but their normal FTL (wasteful of resources as it probably is) can still get the job done.

However, if given a choice between a Relay or none, they are obviously going to choose a Relay. I bet FTL for them is very wasteful and, comparatively fast as their FTL is, it's still gonna take them months if not years to go from the system which formerly housed the Alpha Relay to the Citadel.

If they can get to earth then they can go to any system without a gate that they want to, to refuel, even if they have to go to earth its stupid to attack it, if they need the local cluster gate then they should just quickly use the gate to get to the citadel, hanging around and destroying earth with out securing or destroying the gate is very stupid, the last thing they would want is to let everyone know they are there.

Friend... they aren't just going to "sneak" by... it's an armadia of huge, sentient space ships, and while there main goal i'm sure is to get to the citidal and lock it down, don't forget that thanks to Shepards bad@ssery they now consider the human race to be the most dangerious of all the races in the current galaxie. Taking them off guard and out asap is a smart tactical move.

Not to mention the fact your really taking into account the fuel they have burnt, would have to still burn to get to the cidital undetected if they forwent the gates, and the fact that the "fuel" they need may well not be found in just any system. They seem to harvest advanced civilations for a reason. And empty system may not have what they need, esspecially for a fleet. Sure, attacking earth might not be the "best" tactical decession they can make, the citidal would be, but, they very well may not have a choice, and this is the best they can do.

This isn't there Plan A attack. We thawarted that. And Plan B and C too. This is plan D, and it's never as good as plan A. LOL.

Space isn't a canyon pass, space is huge and mostly empty, they would have no problem sneaking anywhere with a huge armada as long as they avoided systems without gates since gates are the only real way for species to expand or communicate, they could wipe out countless species from worlds without gates and it would be hundreds of years before anyone got any distress signals. As for the whole refueling thing, they really only need to find a gas giant and a rocky world to fuel up and discharge the drive core, granted a refueling station around it would probably help but chances are the reapers would have some self contained way of extracting what they need for fuel. Going by the galactic map the local cluster isn't physically far from the citadel... relatively speaking, so they could just go to one or the other.

The crux of the disagreement we seem to have is fuel. Your right in that they could sneak by. It's possible because space is big. Your right. They aren't. This is either bad writing like you seem to think, or it's because it's not feasible for them to do so. They don't, or don't want to expend the fuel needed to get there sneakly. They don't think they NEED too maybe. Like the one poster suggested, perhaps it's arragoince. Perhaps nessissity. Maybe they can't just use some random gas giant or rocky world to fuel up. They seem to be harvesting civilations, prehaps for a reason.

Lots of this is all just pure speculation. (most all of it really) We really don't know. It'll be intresting to see. I've read somewhere the dev's have said this game won't end with a magic "i win" button. If that's the case, and I hope it is cause that's kind of lame, then we have to fight it out. And all i'm saying is, wining a stright fight is possible, and i've speculated why i think that way. But i don't know if that's how it's going to happen. I'm eager to see.

And also, we have a chance at saving earth, IMO, because the reapers don't *distory* civilations, they harvest them. Harvesting takes time i'd wager. If you remember the promo, 2 million dead in the first wave, a few more million by the end of a few days? I don't remember the numbers, but the point is, they weren't wiping out humanity, they were subdoing. If they wanted us wiped out, they could have done that from orbit and indiscriminitally at the start. They aren't. They want/need something from us. That give Shepard time to save earth. Not alot of time... and it's going to be hard to dig out and entrenched enemy... but then, i've always said this was going to get bad. LOL

 

[Avatar Roku]

Well thinking about it, Sovereign was destroyed by the combined effort of the Alliance and all the other groups, as well as the death of Saren Arterius. Now while not every Reaper has a Saren of their own (excluding Harbinger who had the Collectors) they must all still be capable of being killed. Now, based on Shepard's actions in ME2 regarding the Collector base, this may prove easier. Otherwise, its gonna take a helluva lotta ships and guns.

has everyone forgotton that sovereign had a geth fleet with him?

That is a good point. Sovereign himself barely destroyed any ships before the arms re-opened, most of the destruction was on the Geth's hands. And those Geth were roughly 5% of the total population of Geth, and the other 95% (and possibly that 5% as well, depending on the outcome of Legion's mission) may well be on the Citadel's side in this fight. Them, and the Quarians (who actually have a chance of defeating the Geth) and the Rachni (who almost conquered the whole galaxy themselves). Why are we worried again?

 

[Mikeyfell]

After me and a friend heard a lot of the news about ME3 (Like multyplayer, back when it was just a myth, Cutting RPG elements for more cover based shooting, Smaller team, more planet scanning) We went into panic mode just a little because we loved the first 2 games and couldn't take the heart break if ME3 didn't live up to our expectations. So our brilliant idea was to come up with every possible worst case scenario for ME3. And the one that is relevant to this thread was my thoughts on the stupidest possible end to Mass Effect 3

Why did I tell you that story because otherwise this would have been a low content post.

The Reapers are Shepard's fathers!

I know you see Shepard's parents if you picked the Spacer background story but Bioware has proven time and again that they are not afraid to ret-con the crap out of their games.

 

[Siegfried Raybrandt]

Well thinking about it, Sovereign was destroyed by the combined effort of the Alliance and all the other groups, as well as the death of Saren Arterius. Now while not every Reaper has a Saren of their own (excluding Harbinger who had the Collectors) they must all still be capable of being killed. Now, based on Shepard's actions in ME2 regarding the Collector base, this may prove easier. Otherwise, its gonna take a helluva lotta ships and guns.

has everyone forgotton that sovereign had a geth fleet with him?

That is a good point. Sovereign himself barely destroyed any ships before the arms re-opened, most of the destruction was on the Geth's hands. And those Geth were roughly 5% of the total population of Geth, and the other 95% (and possibly that 5% as well, depending on the outcome of Legion's mission) may well be on the Citadel's side in this fight. Them, and the Quarians (who actually have a chance of defeating the Geth) and the Rachni (who almost conquered the whole galaxy themselves). Why are we worried again?

All this is very true. I had forgotten the Geth fleet. But then again, I never got to play ME1. If the heretic Geth are converted, the fight may be easier with this massive synthetic army. If they were destroyed, it slims up the number of allies the Reapers could have. Its a win win either way. Then again, these are thousands of Reapers coming their way.

 

[Ralen-Sharr]

Shep will cure the krogans of the genophage and the krogans will save the galaxy...

again

and then everyone will break that stupid turian council members fingers

 

[Avatar Roku]

Well thinking about it, Sovereign was destroyed by the combined effort of the Alliance and all the other groups, as well as the death of Saren Arterius. Now while not every Reaper has a Saren of their own (excluding Harbinger who had the Collectors) they must all still be capable of being killed. Now, based on Shepard's actions in ME2 regarding the Collector base, this may prove easier. Otherwise, its gonna take a helluva lotta ships and guns.

has everyone forgotton that sovereign had a geth fleet with him?

That is a good point. Sovereign himself barely destroyed any ships before the arms re-opened, most of the destruction was on the Geth's hands. And those Geth were roughly 5% of the total population of Geth, and the other 95% (and possibly that 5% as well, depending on the outcome of Legion's mission) may well be on the Citadel's side in this fight. Them, and the Quarians (who actually have a chance of defeating the Geth) and the Rachni (who almost conquered the whole galaxy themselves). Why are we worried again?

All this is very true. I had forgotten the Geth fleet. But then again, I never got to play ME1. If the heretic Geth are converted, the fight may be easier with this massive synthetic army. If they were destroyed, it slims up the number of allies the Reapers could have. Its a win win either way. Then again, these are thousands of Reapers coming their way.

First, I just want to say, play ME1. It's SOOO worth it. I love ME2, but ME1 just blows it out of the water.

Also, whether you convert or destroy the Heretics, you still have a massive synthetic army (assuming you made nice with Legion); the regular, non-heretic Geth outnumber the Heretics 19 to 1. For that matter, either option also denies the Reapers of their allies. At the beginning of Legion's loyalty mission, whoever you bring with you (besides Legion) says it best: no matter what option you take, destroying or brainwashing, the Heretics are destroyed.

 

[Avatar Roku]

Shep will cure the krogans of the genophage and the krogans will save the galaxy...

again

and then everyone will break that stupid turian council members fingers

Yes. Then, he couldn't make any more stupid finger quotes. Keelah I hate that guy.

 

[Siegfried Raybrandt]

Well thinking about it, Sovereign was destroyed by the combined effort of the Alliance and all the other groups, as well as the death of Saren Arterius. Now while not every Reaper has a Saren of their own (excluding Harbinger who had the Collectors) they must all still be capable of being killed. Now, based on Shepard's actions in ME2 regarding the Collector base, this may prove easier. Otherwise, its gonna take a helluva lotta ships and guns.

has everyone forgotton that sovereign had a geth fleet with him?

That is a good point. Sovereign himself barely destroyed any ships before the arms re-opened, most of the destruction was on the Geth's hands. And those Geth were roughly 5% of the total population of Geth, and the other 95% (and possibly that 5% as well, depending on the outcome of Legion's mission) may well be on the Citadel's side in this fight. Them, and the Quarians (who actually have a chance of defeating the Geth) and the Rachni (who almost conquered the whole galaxy themselves). Why are we worried again?

All this is very true. I had forgotten the Geth fleet. But then again, I never got to play ME1. If the heretic Geth are converted, the fight may be easier with this massive synthetic army. If they were destroyed, it slims up the number of allies the Reapers could have. Its a win win either way. Then again, these are thousands of Reapers coming their way.

First, I just want to say, play ME1. It's SOOO worth it. I love ME2, but ME1 just blows it out of the water.

Also, whether you convert or destroy the Heretics, you still have a massive synthetic army (assuming you made nice with Legion); the regular, non-heretic Geth outnumber the Heretics 19 to 1. For that matter, either option also denies the Reapers of their allies. At the beginning of Legion's loyalty mission, whoever you bring with you (besides Legion) says it best: no matter what option you take, destroying or brainwashing, the Heretics are destroyed.

As great as I'm sure it is, the copy I have of ME1 refuses to work and I'm in shortage of disposal income at the moment. No I won't say why it isn't working. But anyway, yes Legion is neutral about his loyalty mission, but Kasumi and Mordin do express a neutrality as well regarding the fate of the heretic Geth. Mordin even favours brainwashing over destruction.

 

[damocles23]

Shepard will challenge them to a rock-off, and win with the power of painfully obvious pop culture references.

Of course! The reaper code prevents them to decline a rock off challenge, but the catch is no more cowbell.

 

[Maldaris]

I'm not an English teacher so my typing grammar is going to be horrible but bare with me
The one thing that strikes me is that the prothean couldn't be reaperfied only genetically altered to be slaves, But another thing is that orb in showing how man has either existed during the last Reaper Invasion or that the protheans are still around Ilos was 1 world chances are they could have survived in stasis on another maybe even saving just a hand full with a huge generators. I doubt all protheans could have been so benevolent. Another theory in conjunction I've been trying to work out is that Reapers like all have said wasted unimaginable resources in traveling might have also cannibalized there own so to ensure they have made it back,thus making the fleet smaller giving the current galaxy an edge.
One thing in my mind is for sure I think the citadel is A Key not the Key because what Virgil said that the last protheans huddle on it til death but since you can't really know with the one way trip. Those Protheans might have been the ones to reprogram the keepers so they can also delay the return or depending on the scanning mission in ME and the email you get in ME2 is that the count down Hasn't stopped and the keepers are still waiting for the masters signal.

Or since Reapers are Tecnorganic race EDI having had Experience with RCV (Reaper Computer Viruses) And Mordin who is a Genius in medicine they put their minds to make a ARV( Anti-Reaper Virus). With an ARV you can either cripple the Reapers or wipe the existing reaper program so you can upload EDI then being able to ride her to take down the the Kinetic barriers of the ships while the fleet just blast the unprotected reapers since they have not an impenetrable hull. But I'm glad they have said they have scraped the Reaper off switch Idea because it was dumb and would say a lot of the Bioware creative team. NO McGUFFIN SWITCH FTW!