Questions about Mass Effect 2's ending (SPOILERS)

[vj8usa]

So I finally finished Mass Effect 2 a little while ago, but I'm not entirely sure I understood the ending. What triggers the huge reaper fleet to come in from the void in that final cutscene? Why didn't they just do that 2 years ago after the events of the first game, instead of waiting for someone to destroy the collectors?

My best guess so far is that they wanted to finish the human reaper before starting a new assault, but that seems a little shaky. What signaled the fleet to come in from deep space?

 

[s44]

They haven't appeared yet. They're en route.

 

[vj8usa]

Right, but why are they en route now? What woke them up? I thought that since Sovereign couldn't communicate with the fleet through the citadel, the other reapers stayed "asleep" in deep space.

 

[Raduque]

I think it was that the human reaper signaled them somehow, or they figured out it was killed now.

 

[AndroidVageta]

Yeah...I actually JUST beat the game and wondered this myself. I remember the lead "Reaper" or what not, the one that could take over bodies, saying something about disconnecting body or something then dying right before the ship blew. As far as the other Reaper or Collector ships...maybe this is something for Mass Effect 3?

 

[vj8usa]

Yeah...I actually JUST beat the game and wondered this myself. I remember the lead "Reaper" or what not, the one that could take over bodies, saying something about disconnecting body or something then dying right before the ship blew. As far as the other Reaper or Collector ships...maybe this is something for Mass Effect 3?

From what I understood, Harbinger was the name of the "lead reaper" you're talking about, and he was directly controlling the collector that you see in the cutscene. Harbinger then releases its hold on the collector when it becomes apparent the collectors are going to be destroyed. The incoming reaper fleet would set up ME3 nicely as the plot could revolve around stopping the fleet once and for all, but I wish they had done a better job of explaining why the fleet's on the move now.

 

[smackababy]

I suspect the fleet had been on the move since Sovereign failed. It is apparent the Harbinger knows of Shepard and his exploits. I think the human reaper was an experiment. As reapers usually go, they use the universe's creatures for the diversity in DNA. The humans though, have the diversity needed to make a reaper by themselves. Harbinger was testing this using the collectors as pawns.

Now, having failed to construct a full reaper, the fleet is moving in on the Galaxy to destroy life again. Them being based so far away, it could take years for them to arrive without the Citadel Relay being activated.

That all being said, it is mere speculation and we won't know for another year or two. Hopefully two because rushed games aren't usually as good as those long developed BioWare titles.

 

[Zenoth]

As far as I understood the whole thing the Reapers fleet from dark space was actually en route since the end of ME1 after Sovereign's destruction, but I'm not entirely certain on that one please don't quote me on this. It's actually a good question, why now and not before... indeed, but you know, there's a couple of plot holes in ME2, including one that I never really understood concerning the derelict Reaper that's supposedly 37 million years-old (the IFF mission)... the thing is that if it is 37 million years-old it means that it was "created" or that it "began" to exist 37 million years ago... alright... BUT Sovereign in ME1 on Virmire tells Shepard (the red hologram speech) that the "Reapers" have no beginning and no end, that they simply "are". Alright, so if they have no beginning and no end then why was that Reaper of ANY age? I don't get it, you cannot be "aged" if you have no beginning.

 

[vj8usa]

...the thing is that if it is 37 million years-old it means that it was "created" or that it "began" to exist 37 million years ago... alright... BUT Sovereign in ME1 on Virmire tells Shepard (the red hologram speech) that the "Reapers" have no beginning and no end, that they simply "are". Alright, so if they have no beginning and no end then why was that Reaper of ANY age? I don't get it, you cannot be "aged" if you have no beginning.

Maybe Sovereign just meant that the reapers as a race are timeless? That specific reaper could have been a newer one, created 37 million years ago and based on a cephalopod-like race like Sovereign itself.

That makes me think of something else I don't understand, actually. If reapers are made to look like races they've conquered/wiped out, why does every single reaper shown look the same (other than the unfinished human reaper)? Even in the final cutscene, all the incoming reapers look like Sovereign. What happened to the reapers based on all the other species that were wiped out?

edit: on a side note, I'm glad the human reaper wasn't completed, as it would've looked hilariously stupid flying around and shooting lasers out of its eyes like some sort of gigantic robotic Superman.

 

[Zenoth]

Well, vj8usa, the Human-Reaper larva we see at the end wouldn't have been "the ship" by itself moving in space. While this is pure speculation on my part I had the feeling that the Human-Reaper, once completed, would have been used as the pilot of a MUCH bigger, perhaps "mother" Reaper ship.

 

[PhatoseAlpha]

Possibly, possibly not. Hard to tell. They're machines, and Legion at least seems to think they're software entities. Sovereign was more then one reaper.

We really don't know enough about their nature to speculate.

 

[smackababy]

IIRC the reapers were made out of many species. If a reaper was made out of simply one species, it could take on the look of that species. And the fact that it wasn't complete leaves a lot to be questioned about the final appearance.

Hopefully, ME3 will fill in a lot of holes about this illusive threat from way beyond. Also, I have a feeling the Illusive man is working for / with the reapers somehow. I don't trust that guy at all.

 

[novasatori]

The way I would interpret it is that they were building the Human reaper to replace Sovereign, and Harbinger (reaper) was controlling the collectors for this purpose, I am not sure if they were always in route, but one could say they were, and it showed them continuing, or one could say when Harbinger (reaper) says the collectors have failed them, and they will find other means, he meant they would come themselves.

There are some posts on F13 by someone who wrote the dialogue for some of the game, including EDI/Reaper sequences and posted some more details in particular this which was edited he says:

I had written harder science into EDI's dialogue there. The Reapers were using nanotech disassemblers to perform "destructive analysis" on humans, with the intent of learning how to build a Reaper body that could upload their minds intact. Once this was complete, humans throughout the galaxy would be rounded up to have their personalities and memories forcibly uploaded into the Reaper's memory banks. (You can still hear some suggestions of this in the background chatter during Legion's acquisition mission, which I wrote.) There was nothing about Reapers being techno-organic or partly built out of human corpses -- they were pure tech.

It seems all that was cut out or rewritten after I left. What can ya do. /shrug

You can find this post here.

Its interesting, and makes you wonder if Reapers really are the next evolution step for the races they embody, as harbinger says throughout the collector sections of the game. Since one would think the humans being absorbed into a reaper would give it the collective consciousness of everyone and allow humans to live for eons as a machine.

So then is Shepard really saving Humanity? :hmm:

Oh well, maybe the stuff was cut to be delved into in ME3.

 

[Zenoth]

Very interesting indeed.

Anyhow, whatever happens in ME3, that game will have to be massive to fill up all the unanswered questions, in fact I can barely imagine that the Reapers story arc of the ME universe really can be completed by the end of ME3, especially considering that ME2's story didn't help us much concerning the Reapers, it was more about building up your team than anything else. I just wouldn't want to be in BioWare's shoes right now.

 

[vj8usa]

Very interesting indeed.

Anyhow, whatever happens in ME3, that game will have to be massive to fill up all the unanswered questions, in fact I can barely imagine that the Reapers story arc of the ME universe really can be completed by the end of ME3, especially considering that ME2's story didn't help us much concerning the Reapers, it was more about building up your team than anything else. I just wouldn't want to be in BioWare's shoes right now.

You know, that's a damn good point. It hadn't hit me until I read your post, but most of the game was just going around recruiting your team. I guess that's why the game's story felt weaker than the first one - there wasn't much real plot development. I guess I shouldn't be expecting the middle of a trilogy to rival the beginning/ending in terms of story though.

 

[JoshGuru7]

My predictions:

- At the end of ME1, the Reapers were all out in deep space save Sovereign who was the one tasked with opening the relay for them to come home. His destruction put a major kink in their plans and piqued their interest in Shepard and humanity since this probably had never happened before - or they would have left two reapers behind.

- Upon learning of Sovereign's demise the Reapers may have started a lengthy trip back to galactic space without the aid of the mass relay but I think it's more likely that they decided to wait and see if the mass relay was still a possibility. On a 50,000 year timescale, waiting two years for an attempt is nothing.

- Harbingers plan B was to use the collector and geth slaves to construct a human reaper. The human reaper was an experiment itself to see if humans would make good reapers, but it would have filled double duty by being tasked with suceeding where Sovereign failed. No downside to the Reapers here, only upside if it works and they get to shave years off their trip.

- Based on their interest in Shepard and the advanced tech required for the Lazarus Project, it's possible that they are somehow involved in Cerberus or with the Illusive Man. This seems a bit unlikely due to the actions of the Illusive Man, but it's possible that he is being manipulated and that the Reapers simply didn't value the Collectors very highly. They'll have a new slave race in the Geth once they get back to Galactic Space, so perhaps the Collectors had outlived their usefulness.

- Note that partly as a result of the actions of Cerberus, the council and the alliance are still largely unconcerned about the Reaper threat. In many cases you went on ahead while the official notice was delayed. The lack of alliance response to dead collectors could indicate that Cerberus sent cleanup teams around after you.

- After the collectors and human reaper were destroyed, the Reapers set out at full speed towards the galaxy. However, if the trip is only a matter of a few years then I have to wonder why they needed the Mass Relay in the first place. Appearing in the middle of the citadel is highly convenient for an attacking force, but if the journey is only a matter of a few years then it's negligible next to the 50,000 year cycle they operate on. I think it's more likely that they are hundreds or thousands of years away, after all the purpose of going away is to wait somewhere where they cannot be accidentally stumbled upon. As such, Mass Effect 3 will revolve around another plot to shorten the trip. I think this will involve capturing the Mass Relay perhaps involving Cerberus, and we may see a new group of Reaper slaves called into service along with possibly the geth being overwritten to all serve the Reapers.

- Also, the actions of the Prothean scientists seem to indicate that the Reaper fleet needs the Mass Relay to return. They returned to the Citadel after the Reapers wiped out civilization and modified the signal sent to the keepers so the Reapers could not employ the same strategy in the future. Yet they left no warnings about the Reapers behind at the Citadel, which indicates that they believed the threat was ended with the alteration of the signal. I guess it's also possible that they left a bunch of stuff behind but the Keepers cleaned it all up over the millenia.

 

[JoshGuru7]

One other thing to bear in mind is that Bioware was able to refrain from having the Repears reveal their plot themselves in either game. Interactions with the Reapers are full of malice, but not very informative. This really frees them up for the third game because everything we think we know is just guesswork.

 

[Maximilian]

Well, vj8usa, the Human-Reaper larva we see at the end wouldn't have been "the ship" by itself moving in space. While this is pure speculation on my part I had the feeling that the Human-Reaper, once completed, would have been used as the pilot of a MUCH bigger, perhaps "mother" Reaper ship.

Yeah definately, i initially wondered why they looked the same as well but i think it would definately fit inside a "body" of sorts, the thing all the other reapers use.

http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/masseffect/images/8/86/Ww.JPG

That alone says theres no way the human reaper would fly around on its own, it was barely the size of a geth dropship and sovreign is much bigger than a whole fleet of them. So i guess knowing that, we've never actually seen sovreign properly, or any reapers until the human one, all thats been shown is their shells.

 

[Maximilian]

My predictions:
- After the collectors and human reaper were destroyed, the Reapers set out at full speed towards the galaxy. However, if the trip is only a matter of a few years then I have to wonder why they needed the Mass Relay in the first place. Appearing in the middle of the citadel is highly convenient for an attacking force, but if the journey is only a matter of a few years then it's negligible next to the 50,000 year cycle they operate on. I think it's more likely that they are hundreds or thousands of years away, after all the purpose of going away is to wait somewhere where they cannot be accidentally stumbled upon. As such, Mass Effect 3 will revolve around another plot to shorten the trip. I think this will involve capturing the Mass Relay perhaps involving Cerberus, and we may see a new group of Reaper slaves called into service along with possibly the geth being overwritten to all serve the Reapers.

They mightve been travelling for a long time, from what is learned in ME2 it seems the rachnai may have been influenced by sovereign, ultimately sovereign wanted to clear the races off the citadel and manually activate it and the whole rachnai thing may well have been an attempt at that and that took place a few hundred years ago. So sovereign may have been trying to activate the citadel and failing for quite a long time.

 

[fatpat268]

Very interesting indeed.

Anyhow, whatever happens in ME3, that game will have to be massive to fill up all the unanswered questions, in fact I can barely imagine that the Reapers story arc of the ME universe really can be completed by the end of ME3, especially considering that ME2's story didn't help us much concerning the Reapers, it was more about building up your team than anything else. I just wouldn't want to be in BioWare's shoes right now.

Honestly, it felt like ME2 was a half story.

The game is longer than ME1, but its length is padded by all the loyalty missions and planet scanning. After I beat ME2, all I could say was, "That's it?"

Really, it doesn't make much sense. The entire crew goes through the relay without any real means of destroying the collectors. The fact that they did so was luck really. All in all though, the whole destroying the collectors did little to advance the story. It's a nice little side story, but lets get on to ME3 so we can kick some reaper ass!

 

[Zenoth]

Honestly, it felt like ME2 was a half story.

The game is longer than ME1, but its length is padded by all the loyalty missions and planet scanning. After I beat ME2, all I could say was, "That's it?"

Really, it doesn't make much sense. The entire crew goes through the relay without any real means of destroying the collectors. The fact that they did so was luck really. All in all though, the whole destroying the collectors did little to advance the story. It's a nice little side story, but lets get on to ME3 so we can kick some reaper ass!

I'm probably part of a minority, I don't know, but for me ME2 was in fact shorter than ME1, I mean on my first play-through. The first time I played ME1 (and I still got that saved game) it took me 46 hours to complete. My first ME2 play-through (with the ME1 imported saved game) took me 36 hours, and I completed all the Assignments including those we find via planet scanning. I did not scan all the planets for their resources however, but I did scan them all to detect anomalies (missions), a very small number of them were scanned for resources, and when I did I only went for the very high resources peaks, I didn't bother completely emptying them of their resources to a hundred percent, it would have been a superb waste of time.

What I do appreciate though is the fact that we can continue the game after we finish it, that way when (not "if") BioWare releases a DLC we'll be able to experience it right away without having to completely re-start a new game.

 

[fatpat268]

I'm probably part of a minority, I don't know, but for me ME2 was in fact shorter than ME1, I mean on my first play-through. The first time I played ME1 (and I still got that saved game) it took me 46 hours to complete. My first ME2 play-through (with the ME1 imported saved game) took me 36 hours, and I completed all the Assignments including those we find via planet scanning. I did not scan all the planets for their resources however, but I did scan them all to detect anomalies (missions), a very small number of them were scanned for resources, and when I did I only went for the very high resources peaks, I didn't bother completely emptying them of their resources to a hundred percent, it would have been a superb waste of time.

What I do appreciate though is the fact that we can continue the game after we finish it, that way when (not "if") BioWare releases a DLC we'll be able to experience it right away without having to completely re-start a new game.

It depends how you went about the original ME. If you did every last planet mission and searched every planet with the mako, I could easily see that amount of time.

For me, though, I didn't do all the planets. I did some of the more interesting ones and the main mission, and I finished at 27 hours. In ME2, I scanned a ton of planets (and got a lot more resources than I ever needed), and did most of the side missions, and I finished at 32 hours. I don't know how the two times compared, but the first game just seemed a lot shorter.

 

[daishi5]

My predictions:
- After the collectors and human reaper were destroyed, the Reapers set out at full speed towards the galaxy. However, if the trip is only a matter of a few years then I have to wonder why they needed the Mass Relay in the first place. Appearing in the middle of the citadel is highly convenient for an attacking force, but if the journey is only a matter of a few years then it's negligible next to the 50,000 year cycle they operate on. I think it's more likely that they are hundreds or thousands of years away, after all the purpose of going away is to wait somewhere where they cannot be accidentally stumbled upon. As such, Mass Effect 3 will revolve around another plot to shorten the trip. I think this will involve capturing the Mass Relay perhaps involving Cerberus, and we may see a new group of Reaper slaves called into service along with possibly the geth being overwritten to all serve the Reapers.

- Also, the actions of the Prothean scientists seem to indicate that the Reaper fleet needs the Mass Relay to return. They returned to the Citadel after the Reapers wiped out civilization and modified the signal sent to the keepers so the Reapers could not employ the same strategy in the future. Yet they left no warnings about the Reapers behind at the Citadel, which indicates that they believed the threat was ended with the alteration of the signal. I guess it's also possible that they left a bunch of stuff behind but the Keepers cleaned it all up over the millenia.

I get the impression that a mass relay is the reapers only hope of making it back. The codex entries on mass effect drives state that they have limited ability to go ftl before they have to discharge their drive. In deep space, they reapers cannot discharge their drive, and sovereign appears to work on the mass effect drives, using relays and all. I think the one way in one way out kept them safe, but they just assumed that the gate would always work. From the perspective of the fleet, even if they were traveling at light speed, they are at least thousands of light years out. I know fiction will ignore the perspective they gave on the galaxy, but I don't think the game is going to be based on them flying back through space. Also, the reapers appear to be so powerful, that unless all of the fleets that are described in the codex are increased by a factor of 10,000 or more, the galaxy could not face the reapers, so I bet the game will always be based on preventing them from using a mass relay to return.

I think the collectors and the harvesting of humans was not considered in the original storyline, it seems to me like sovereign was originally the reapers only method of getting in. The whole new storyline is a "surprise" they had extra resources they totally did not use to try to win the first fight. We are trying to figure out the overall storyline, when I don't think one even exists, they are going to make the third game by trying to take everything they threw out there and try to make it all make sense.

 

[JoshGuru7]

They mightve been travelling for a long time, from what is learned in ME2 it seems the rachnai may have been influenced by sovereign, ultimately sovereign wanted to clear the races off the citadel and manually activate it and the whole rachnai thing may well have been an attempt at that and that took place a few hundred years ago. So sovereign may have been trying to activate the citadel and failing for quite a long time.

That's certainly possible but if they had been travelling for hundreds of years it seems like really wierd timing to make an attempt on the mass relay right when they are getting close to the end of their journey. They not only risked Sovereign but tipping their hand. That also wouldn't explain why the prothean scientists thought that altering the keepers would prevent the Reaper threat in the future. Hundreds of years of travel is meaningless from the perspective of a 50,000 cycle.

Also, the reapers appear to be so powerful, that unless all of the fleets that are described in the codex are increased by a factor of 10,000 or more, the galaxy could not face the reapers, so I bet the game will always be based on preventing them from using a mass relay to return.

My speculation is partly based on this as well. Given the trouble that a single Reaper presented at the end of ME1 to the entire council/alliance defense group, having thousands of Reapers show up would probably be game over no matter how many upgrades the Normandy got in the meantime. As far as gameplay, I expect to see Shepard fighting surface battles trying to prevent a mass relay from beind used rather than engaging in a massive dogfight in space.

Of course it's possible that the Reapers really will all come back but Shepard/Cerberus will discover they can all be stopped with a single trick utilizing the shared communication between the Reapers. Maybe some sort of very sophisticated virus designed by Legion?

 

[Scrodes]

Maybe there will be a massive war in ME3. I hope...

If you spared the rachni queen in ME1 you get a message via an assari in ME2. It vaguely states that "a mutual enemy" was behind the aggressive rachni uprising resulting in their extinction. It also says that the queen is raising a fleet to help Shepard fight this common enemy.

Sovereign worked through agents to avoid uniting the entire galaxy against against the reapers. I imagine the sudden appearance of a reaper fleet would unite all the organic races. The organic fleets Sovereign faced at the citadel was just the regular Citadel defense attachment, a fraction of the councils military power. Combine that with the fleets of the non-citadel races.

Don't forget about the Geth either. Legion States that a very large majority of the Geth oppose the "old machines." They would fight too. and the Geth number in the billions. So... we have Rachni, Geth and all organic races... maybe there will be an epic war...


Or maybe Sheppard will just pull some lame Independence Day like virus stunt...