Mass Effect 3
Mar. 6th, 2012 12:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skull_bearerIs coming out tomorrow. I haven't reserved my copy, but if I don't get it straight away I can always download it off Steam, or wait a few days. Anyhow, I've been wanting to ramble about my thoughts on the upcoming Reaper war.
Basically, I think in every way, the Mass Effect galaxy has never been a better position to trounce the Reapers. The Reapers are in the worst position they've been in since they started this cycle of genocide, which is due to a number of factors.
- They're running behind schedule. They were planning to have invaded years, if not decades ago. This might not been a big deal for millenia old sentient spacecraft, but it's a HUGE deal for everyone else. Organic progress is fast, and I don't think the Reapers can even hope to match that advance. I strongly suspect the 50,000 year limit is there for the reason that beyond that, the organic's technology would have advanced too far for the Reapers to be certain of a quick and painless victory - and that the organics would have started figuring out how Mass Relays work. That was the case with the Protheans, and the same now. Every year organics havr before the Reapers arrive means the technology gap is closing.
- Exposure to Reaper technology. The second Normandy has a main gun modeled from Soveriegn's. That is seriously bad news for the Reapers. Just from studying the bits of Soveriegn, and after ME2 the schematics for the Reaper fetoid, the current races of the galaxy have made not only an important technological advance, they have a good idea how Reapers work, and, more importantly, how they break.
- A Stalingrad situation. This ties into the above points as well. The reason the Reapers didn't just charge in to attack in ME1, and why they tried the Reaper fetoid approach in ME2 is that if they didn't, they'd be giving up their biggest advantage: taking the Citadel and the Mass Relays. They do that, and it's over. No one has a chance. Thanks to the Protheans and our good commander, however, they no longer have that option. They're running out of pawns. The Keepers aren't listening, the Collectors are gone, the Geth are known enemies (and after ME2, gone as well) and the galaxy is slowly coming to recognise them as a threat.
Due to the two above points, the Reapers can't afford to wait. In the time it would take the fuss to die down (and Commander Shepard to just die, even of old age) the races of the galaxy might well have realised how the Mass Relays work, what the Reapers are and how the Citadel functions. They'd have a hard time trying to make that plan work again.
So they've landed on the only option they have (Mirek Shepard would like to note for the record that another option is just to leave well alone and stop the cycle of destruction. Opinion noted sir.) to go in guns blazing and kill everyone before everything gets even worse. Then they can have time to sit back and dicuss ways to never let this happen again, ever.
But first, they have to win, and that doesn't look easy right now. instead of zooming in and knocking out the seat of government, they're having to creep in from the edges, fighting through inceasingly heavy forces, forced to use Mass Relays to get anywhere, and being unable to shut them off so the organics can still maintain travel and communications through the star systems and evacuate populations and resources away from the Reaper fleets. Meanwhile, points one and two will be in full force. Nothing spurs innovation like a desperate war, and if the races of the galaxy can slow the Reapers long enough, I expect from sheer exposure to their tactics and studies of their dead, an efficient weapon against Reapers could be constructed in a very short time. As well as means to protect from indoctrination and so on.
And as to why, if all this stands, is the Reaper's first target Earth? Well, look at us:
If we're not the first port of call, we're pretty close. Add how Commander Shepard's right pissed them off recently, no wonder Earth's a target. Exposed, on the outskirts, not surprising at all.
(Mirek Shepard's take on this is that if he has to sacrifice everyone in the galaxy to make sure the next batch of intelligent life can live without Reapers, that's acceptable losses, so one small planet is nothing)
So yeah, there are reasonable ground for hope. More of a chance than everyone who came before had.
Then again, the Reapers are three mile long super-intelligent mech-chuthulus, just one of which took down the combined fleets of just about everyone, so even with all that, it's going to be a rought ride.
I love this game.
(ps, no spoilers until I make a post saying I've finished the game)
Basically, I think in every way, the Mass Effect galaxy has never been a better position to trounce the Reapers. The Reapers are in the worst position they've been in since they started this cycle of genocide, which is due to a number of factors.
- They're running behind schedule. They were planning to have invaded years, if not decades ago. This might not been a big deal for millenia old sentient spacecraft, but it's a HUGE deal for everyone else. Organic progress is fast, and I don't think the Reapers can even hope to match that advance. I strongly suspect the 50,000 year limit is there for the reason that beyond that, the organic's technology would have advanced too far for the Reapers to be certain of a quick and painless victory - and that the organics would have started figuring out how Mass Relays work. That was the case with the Protheans, and the same now. Every year organics havr before the Reapers arrive means the technology gap is closing.
- Exposure to Reaper technology. The second Normandy has a main gun modeled from Soveriegn's. That is seriously bad news for the Reapers. Just from studying the bits of Soveriegn, and after ME2 the schematics for the Reaper fetoid, the current races of the galaxy have made not only an important technological advance, they have a good idea how Reapers work, and, more importantly, how they break.
- A Stalingrad situation. This ties into the above points as well. The reason the Reapers didn't just charge in to attack in ME1, and why they tried the Reaper fetoid approach in ME2 is that if they didn't, they'd be giving up their biggest advantage: taking the Citadel and the Mass Relays. They do that, and it's over. No one has a chance. Thanks to the Protheans and our good commander, however, they no longer have that option. They're running out of pawns. The Keepers aren't listening, the Collectors are gone, the Geth are known enemies (and after ME2, gone as well) and the galaxy is slowly coming to recognise them as a threat.
Due to the two above points, the Reapers can't afford to wait. In the time it would take the fuss to die down (and Commander Shepard to just die, even of old age) the races of the galaxy might well have realised how the Mass Relays work, what the Reapers are and how the Citadel functions. They'd have a hard time trying to make that plan work again.
So they've landed on the only option they have (Mirek Shepard would like to note for the record that another option is just to leave well alone and stop the cycle of destruction. Opinion noted sir.) to go in guns blazing and kill everyone before everything gets even worse. Then they can have time to sit back and dicuss ways to never let this happen again, ever.
But first, they have to win, and that doesn't look easy right now. instead of zooming in and knocking out the seat of government, they're having to creep in from the edges, fighting through inceasingly heavy forces, forced to use Mass Relays to get anywhere, and being unable to shut them off so the organics can still maintain travel and communications through the star systems and evacuate populations and resources away from the Reaper fleets. Meanwhile, points one and two will be in full force. Nothing spurs innovation like a desperate war, and if the races of the galaxy can slow the Reapers long enough, I expect from sheer exposure to their tactics and studies of their dead, an efficient weapon against Reapers could be constructed in a very short time. As well as means to protect from indoctrination and so on.
And as to why, if all this stands, is the Reaper's first target Earth? Well, look at us:
If we're not the first port of call, we're pretty close. Add how Commander Shepard's right pissed them off recently, no wonder Earth's a target. Exposed, on the outskirts, not surprising at all.
(Mirek Shepard's take on this is that if he has to sacrifice everyone in the galaxy to make sure the next batch of intelligent life can live without Reapers, that's acceptable losses, so one small planet is nothing)
So yeah, there are reasonable ground for hope. More of a chance than everyone who came before had.
Then again, the Reapers are three mile long super-intelligent mech-chuthulus, just one of which took down the combined fleets of just about everyone, so even with all that, it's going to be a rought ride.
I love this game.
(ps, no spoilers until I make a post saying I've finished the game)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2012-03-06 07:31 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-03-07 08:06 am (UTC)