Mass Relay, Omega Relay and Citdel (Mass Effect 1 and 2 SPOILERS)

[Altorin]

relays are not really like guns... each relay is connected to a different relay, and they create a tunnel of mass free space between them, which ships can travel through at near instantaneous speeds. You also can't destroy a mass relay - Mass Relays have existed since the dawn of existence basically, and every possible thing the universe could through at them has been thrown at them. Specifically, the Mu Relay from the first game was thrown into god knows where (well, the Rachni Queen I guess, and Shepard), by its sun going supernova. The sun's planets were disintegrated, and the mu relay was just moved.

Relays are tough pieces of kit.

I doubt the final solution will involve destroying a relay, unless we find some new reaper technology that's capable of doing it, because nothing the sapient races have is capable of doing it.

The end of ME2 made me think that the Citadel was merely a shortcut: Dark Space wasn't actually another universe, but the abyss between galaxies where nothing lives. The Reapers, now pretty annoyed that not only have you stopped both attempts to use it, but have also killed one reaper and a BABY Reaper, are simply ignoring it and hitting their FTL drives hard to attack anyway.

Plus, it was only the Fifth fleet of the human alliance if I remember correctly. The Citadel fleet was a cross-race thing, each species has their own multiple fleets which they can bring to bear. Huamnity is a newcomer to the galaxy yet could destroy a Reaper with one of its fleets. The combined forces of the entire galaxy could put up one hell of a fight for the Reapers.

1) Even if the reapers did just say "fuck using the relays" and just started flying, it would probably take them hundreds of years to get to a working relay within the galaxy. And it was pretty much said in the first game that the reapers were just outside the galaxy in the darkspace between galaxies. Not some alternate dimension. Although they might be able to do it.. it really just depends on how close they are to a mass relay within the galaxy. I still think it would take forever.. The game doesn't show it well, but FTL isn't really that fast in the larger sense. It can sometimes take hours to go from a mass relay to a nearby system.. in the game it happens instaneously, or in the case of ME2, quickly.

2. All of the Council races took a big hit during the attack on the citadel. Depending on your actions (saving the council/letting them die), humanity can take a huge toll, or end up as the most dominant force in the galaxy.. but everyone took a major hit.

 

[Kjakings]

Anything can be destroyed if you get inside it. Relays are big, they must need maintenance somehow, and plus how do you activate them? Get inside with enough ordinance and it should go boom.

 

[Composer]

As of the end of Mass Effect 2, there's no indication of any good way to destroy the reapers. It took the combined galactic fleet of the citadel to destroy ONE Reaper, and there were heavy losses.

Taking the fight to the Reapers is an incredibly bad idea at this point in the game's timeline. We'll have to see if there's any decent anti-Reaper weapon discovered in ME3.

not for me! i destroyed the ship with the

Spoiler

human reaper larva

on it and then that guy got all mad....gooooood times

 

[Joshimodo]

In Mass Effect 1 it's explained that the Citadel is actually a Mass Relay to the Dark Space where the Reapers lie dormant. And we want to prevent Saren from activating it, because:
"When the Citadel relay is activated, the Reapers will pour through. And all you know will be destroyed" according to the VI on Iios.

Yes, the Citadel is an enormous Mass Relay and also a way to seal all other Mass Relays to stop the current apex race(s) evading the Reapers.

However, this is my question.
If I get it straight, Mass Relays are like a gun, shooting the ships to preset locations.
They are one way machines, and do NOT function like portals.
That is why destroying the Omega Relay would be pointless.

Not quite. There are main Mass Relays, and then singular ones. Singular Mass Relays are able to fire to several Mass Relays but over shorter distance, and then main ones can ONLY fire to other main ones, but can fire over MUCH longer distances.

Ergo, the Omega Relay and it's twin in Collector space can fire back and forth to each other, hence how the Collectors can go back and forth when collecting.

It's unknown what relay exists in Reaper space, but I'm guessing it's another gigantic Citadel-size relay, just without all the cities and junk on it.

However... how does that go with the Reaper story?
If the Citadel is a Mass Relay TO the reapers, we WANT to activate it and go in and wipe them out, no?
If a Mass Relay is one way, we want to go to Dark Space and destroy their's, am I right?

As said in Mass Effect 1, they retreat BACK THROUGH the Citadel back into "dark space" between galaxies. It's two-way. We don't want to activate the Citadel since that would "wake" the Reapers from their dormant state.




Also, Mass Effect 3 will clearly focus on uniting the galaxy against the Reaper threat.

Geth/Quarian conflict resolution, uniting arguably the most powerful fleet (Geth) and the rather powerful Flotilla, the Citadel races (including the non-Council ones), the Rachni (known to be one of the most powerful races, hence the Rachni Wars), the newly-united Krogan, also known as one of the most powerful races.

Plus, the Protheans were ALONE. They were the singular apex race, and although technologically ahead of any current Mass Effect race, they were going solo, and also had no warning.

Shepard will need to rally all of the races in the galaxy to combat the Reapers, and convince them that the Reapers are a true threat. The Quarians, Geth and Krogan already know of the Reapers to varying degrees (Wrex can convince the Krogan, Tali can convince the Quarians, and the Geth worshipped them), and the Rachni are believed to have been indoctrinated before.

 

[Altorin]

However... how does that go with the Reaper story?
If the Citadel is a Mass Relay TO the reapers, we WANT to activate it and go in and wipe them out, no?
If a Mass Relay is one way, we want to go to Dark Space and destroy their's, am I right?

As said in Mass Effect 1, they retreat BACK THROUGH the Citadel back into "dark space" between galaxies. It's two-way. We don't want to activate the Citadel since that would "wake" the Reapers from their dormant state.

I'm with you there until the end of ME2. Harbinger is awake, and outside the galaxy (I presume). So I don't think the reapers are dormant anymore. They're just stuck in darkspace, because their galactic relay as you put it isn't working because the citadel relay isn't active.

 

[Tharwen]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH

I'm confused

 

[MiracleOfSound]

Jeepers Creepers, the Reapers use the Keepers as their peepers.

I love you in an "I wanna stab you" kind of way.

I'm truly touched. (puts on armoured pyjamas)

It's a game...

As pointless posts go, this one ranks fairly high on the leaderboards.

 

[Joshimodo]

However... how does that go with the Reaper story?
If the Citadel is a Mass Relay TO the reapers, we WANT to activate it and go in and wipe them out, no?
If a Mass Relay is one way, we want to go to Dark Space and destroy their's, am I right?

As said in Mass Effect 1, they retreat BACK THROUGH the Citadel back into "dark space" between galaxies. It's two-way. We don't want to activate the Citadel since that would "wake" the Reapers from their dormant state.

I'm with you there until the end of ME2. Harbinger is awake, and outside the galaxy (I presume). So I don't think the reapers are dormant anymore. They're just stuck in darkspace, because their galactic relay as you put it isn't working because the citadel relay isn't active.

Yes, I was on about the idea of activating the Citadel waking them, obviously at the end of Mass Effect 2 the Reapers are descending onto the galactic rim. Harbinger likely woke the other Reapers when his directly-controlled Collectors failed and Shepard bested their second main army, and knew it would only be a matter of time before Shepard convinces the galaxy and unites them against the Reapers. As I said in my previous post, the Protheans were alone, making them easy prey for the Reapers.

 

[B-Rye]

This is pretty much conjecture, but the reapers come every time at the apex of every galactic civilization right? It's been established that the reapers are ready to wipe out all life in the galaxy again, they're just having trouble because our shepard's keep screwing it up for them.

Now they're just coming here the long way and it looks like there's a lot of them. (Sovereign was not lying about having numbers that can blot out the sky). Anyway...

The solution to dealing with the reapers is likely going to have a lot to do with the manipulation of dark energy. Parasini and Tali alluded to there being a heightened interest throughout the civilations of the galaxy. This absolutely screams foreshadowing.

The Protheans were wiped out around the time they were beginning to truly understand mass relays, which somehow are affected by dark energy (codex entries said so I think).

Again, conjecture.

 

[MercenaryCanary]

As of the end of Mass Effect 2, there's no indication of any good way to destroy the reapers. It took the combined galactic fleet of the citadel to destroy ONE Reaper, and there were heavy losses.

Taking the fight to the Reapers is an incredibly bad idea at this point in the game's timeline. We'll have to see if there's any decent anti-Reaper weapon discovered in ME3.

Well, not the galaxies fleet, but just the Citadel's.
Which is a good thing, as it seems that only the Asari, Turians and Salarians were doing things.
Then the humans go into play. So... only about four species, three of which were caught off guard.
What does this mean?
It means that by Mass Effect 3, the entire galaxy has a good chance of surviving if everyone can pull together.
BUT HOLY FUCK MATE, THE CHANCE TO HAVE AN ENTIRE ARMY OF FUCKING RACHNI FIGHTING WITH ME?!?!?!
Damn epic!

 

[Altorin]

what I like about the behind the scenes story of Mass Effect is.. the game is played on borrowed time. from the start of the game, the galaxy should have already been assaulted by the reapers. The protheans are the real heroes of the story. If they hadn't built the conduit and altered the keepers, the story would have ended literally before it began.

 

[Kjakings]

My bad, I must have missed that bit.

If so, then the Reapers only need to be far enough out that they wouldn't be discovered, which is probably not very far. Who would go out there? There's nothing.

And I think that the beings who created the Relays would have faster FTL technology than the Normandy. Soverign used the Relay because he needed the Council Fleets to be scattered when he arrived: not only would he leave behind his Geth if he hit FTL, but he may hit a planet or worse, someone would pick up the energy he's giving off with a drive that powerful and the Citadel would already be closed to him, and the Citadel fleet would have a pretty solid defensive line ready to blast him and his Geth out of the sky.

Getting from darkspace to the edge of the Milky Way would not require so much secrecy, and then blasting to death anything that saw them and sending a huge swathe of destruction over the Galaxy would be a simple matter. Or they hit the Relays and go attack the Citadel, then lay the swathe of destruction.

 

[The Lost Big Boss]

This is pretty much conjecture, but the reapers come every time at the apex of every galactic civilization right? It's been established that the reapers are ready to wipe out all life in the galaxy again, they're just having trouble because our shepard's keep screwing it up for them.

Now they're just coming here the long way and it looks like there's a lot of them. (Sovereign was not lying about having numbers that can blot out the sky). Anyway...

The solution to dealing with the reapers is likely going to have a lot to do with the manipulation of dark energy. Parasini and Tali alluded to there being a heightened interest throughout the civilations of the galaxy. This absolutely screams foreshadowing.

The Protheans were wiped out around the time they were beginning to truly understand mass relays, which somehow are affected by dark energy (codex entries said so I think).

Again, conjecture.

Wait, remember that Tali mission where the sun was becoming unstable? That has to have something to do with dark energy and Mass Effect 3. They wouldn't just throw it in for no reason, considering they never brought it up after that.

Also would it be smart to say that Mass Effect 3 will have some type of countdown timer? I mean with the end of times coming it would make sense for Shepard to move those feet and leave some of those side missions behind.

 

[GruntOwner]

Plus, it was only the Fifth fleet of the human alliance if I remember correctly. The Citadel fleet was a cross-race thing, each species has their own multiple fleets which they can bring to bear. Huamnity is a newcomer to the galaxy yet could destroy a Reaper with one of its fleets. The combined forces of the entire galaxy could put up one hell of a fight for the Reapers.

Sovereign wasn't doing much in the way of defending itself until the end of the fight. Most of the time it had been using all its processing to get into the damaged citidal and perform what the keepers were supposed to have done. He had to try to access it personally when Saren stopped trying to hand control over to him, so when the human fleet came through he was unprepared and busy.

5th fleet is also a huge part of the human fleet. Alliance navy works on having a few main battle fleets, each overlooking a single galactic sctor, so when a problem arises the distress signal goes off and the enough firepower to conquer a few star clusters comes bursting through the mass relay like a sledge hammer, wiping out anything not human.

Dark Space will contain several thousand reapers. One reaper and a geth fleet, a SINGLE geth fleet, overcame the 3 most significant council fleets heading by the new flagship, to be taken down by a suprise attack from behind.I'm pretty sure that I recall the council saying that they had called back every ship they could, to prevent Saren trying to spearhead through to the Citedal. The baby reaper was nowhere near complete, it hadn't any armour installed, its weapon system seemed to be "release excess energy via crevice with greatest firing angle" and it had already suffered quite a fall.

As for the destruction of the Reaper's own mass relay, as pointed out above mass relays have survived supernovas, it's unlikely that it can be destroyed short of some kinda biotic jesus miracle.

 

[RN7]

As of the end of Mass Effect 2, there's no indication of any good way to destroy the reapers. It took the combined galactic fleet of the citadel to destroy ONE Reaper, and there were heavy losses.

Taking the fight to the Reapers is an incredibly bad idea at this point in the game's timeline. We'll have to see if there's any decent anti-Reaper weapon discovered in ME3.

Someone's invented a weapon powerful enough to "kill" a Reaper before, granted it costs them their lives, so there's a chance ME3 will have some Deus Ex Machina that will wipe out their fleet.

 

[B-Rye]

There is one possible tactical advantage that could tip the balance in the fight agains the reapers. The Geth. Some people on this topic have said how sovereign and a single fleet of geth nearly defeated the citadel forces on their own.

Since those geth were heretics, and Legion and the true geth oppose the reapers, their numbers and capability in a space battle could help.

I think the Geth pose an even greater threat to the reapers than realized. Legion said that the heretics and the true geth seek the same goal but have different ideas on how to achieve it. The heretics were willing to accept technology from the reapers to achieve their evolutionary goals, thus evolving along the lines that the reapers would desire. Legion and the true geth on the other hand desire to reach their goals without the reapers' technology. Sovereign said that all the technology galactic civilization uses is meant to ensure that those races develop along the lines of what the reapers desire.

A race that decides to not do this, the geth in this case, could be very dangerous to the reapers strategy.

 

[Altorin]

Definitely, the trick will be getting Geth to support organics, and getting organics to accept the Geth support.

 

[Normalgamer]

As of the end of Mass Effect 2, there's no indication of any good way to destroy the reapers. It took the combined galactic fleet of the citadel to destroy ONE Reaper, and there were heavy losses.

Taking the fight to the Reapers is an incredibly bad idea at this point in the game's timeline. We'll have to see if there's any decent anti-Reaper weapon discovered in ME3.

There is, it's called:

Diplomacy
Clearly the reapers are just fighting to survive, and are in no way stupid, surely we can figure out a way for everybody to get along right? Right?

The reapers are just fighting to survive? Lol. No, they're fighting to kill off all life in the galaxy, excluding themselves of course.

Um, no, play the game and pay attention to the dialog, they aren't trying to kill EVERYTHING, if so they would have killed the protheans, and besides that they even said,
"We're your beacon through destruction." They're trying to re-shape you, and they procreate by taking other life-forms to make new ones of them.

 

[Avatar Roku]

There is one possible tactical advantage that could tip the balance in the fight agains the reapers. The Geth. Some people on this topic have said how sovereign and a single fleet of geth nearly defeated the citadel forces on their own.

Since those geth were heretics, and Legion and the true geth oppose the reapers, their numbers and capability in a space battle could help.

I think the Geth pose an even greater threat to the reapers than realized. Legion said that the heretics and the true geth seek the same goal but have different ideas on how to achieve it. The heretics were willing to accept technology from the reapers to achieve their evolutionary goals, thus evolving along the lines that the reapers would desire. Legion and the true geth on the other hand desire to reach their goals without the reapers' technology. Sovereign said that all the technology galactic civilization uses is meant to ensure that those races develop along the lines of what the reapers desire.

A race that decides to not do this, the geth in this case, could be very dangerous to the reapers strategy.

Plus, if Legion is to be belived, the Heretics made up about 5% of the total Geth population. If the Geth joined organics, and the Rachni did as well (as the Rachni Queen promised in ME2), they may well beat the Reapers. Hell, with forces like that, all we need are the Geth, the Rachni, and the Normandy, everyone else is irrelevant in the face of that.

 

[Agayek]

I should maybe rephrase it.

In Mass Effect 1 the Citadel is treated like an entrance to the galaxy from Dark Space.
But how can that be, as the Citadel it self in not in Dark Space?

The way the relays work is that there are 2 relays tied together. When you leave from one, you arrive at the other, always. Thus, if you activate the Citadel relay then you have a 2 way street to the Reapers or back into the Galaxy.

At least, that's how I interpreted it.