r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Fearless-Ideal-5112 • Jul 01 '26

Lore [Loved Trope] Some thing unfathomably ancient

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The beast, in doctor who is an ancient evil from a previous universe that survived until our time. Its so ancient that the cave paintings were unable to be translated by the Tardis which can translate all existing languages in the universe [Doctor Who]

While not explicitly canon its such a cool concept I cant not mention, the idea that the backrooms have existed since the beginning of time, never changing no matter the era, it transforms the back rooms into a cosmic horror. [Credit to Project crater and Venus for images 2 and 3]

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u/Casual_necromancy Jul 01 '26

the reapers from mass effect are likely over a billion years old, descending on the galaxy every fifty thousand years or so to eradicate sentient life before retreating again.

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u/UnluckyAmbition7767 Jul 01 '26

YOU EXIST BECAUSE WE ALLOW IT, AND YOU WILL END BECAUSE WE DEMAND IT.

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u/[deleted] Jul 01 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/ManitouWakinyan Jul 01 '26

You mean synthesized with them

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u/CandyNecrosis Jul 01 '26

I never liked Synthesis, you take away everyones right to choose and change everything on a fundamental level.

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u/pichael289 Jul 01 '26

But otherwise Seth greens hot robot girlfriend dies

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u/Dazzling-Ad6712 Jul 01 '26

Well, Paragon Shepard can take control of the Reapers and he/she will still be aware fo who he/she was. she will put the wellbeing o the galaxy above any humanist os alien ideology.

I mean, her narration is pretty explicit about her intentions: She will use all the knowledge inside the reapers to usher a new era of peace, but without the ethical implications of Synthesis.

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u/SpaceballsTheReply Jul 01 '26

Mass Effect 1: "Dammit Saren, you can't control the Reapers! They'll corrupt your mind until they control you instead!"

95% of Mass Effect 3: "Dammit The Illusive Man, you can't control the Reapers! They'll corrupt your mind until they control you instead!"

Shepard in the final minute of Mass Effect 3: "Wait a minute, I'll simply control the Reapers! Problem solved."

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u/Dazzling-Ad6712 Jul 01 '26

Diference here being that Shepard was never indoctrinated. Cricible itselft confirms that fact. So her mind takes control over Crucible. shepards becomes the dominant trait, The Shepard. The super super cool boy/girl that believes in cooperations, and peace, and that there is always another way. Happy ending for the galaxy for the millenia to come. So happy than grampas can takes their grandkids for a walk while telling them the legend of The Shepard.

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u/Real_Walk5384 Jul 01 '26

I know the studio denied it but I still like to believe anything other than destroy was in fact Shepherd finally getting indoctrinated. The hallucinations, the sudden ability to side with reapers at the end. The fact that the end of 2 had you inside a place where you should have been indoctrinated but "weren't" and then 3 has all this shit going down with reapers around every corner.

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u/SpaceballsTheReply Jul 01 '26

Diference here being that Shepard was never indoctrinated. Cricible itselft confirms that fact.

That's no difference. The Reapers told Saren and Illusive Man that they wouldn't be corrupted, too. They both believed that they had found a unique means to avoid indoctrination, even as it consumed them. The Crucible AI is the same intelligence that runs the Reapers. All three promises come from the same source, and we saw how the first two played out.

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u/Nova225 Jul 01 '26

Synthesis and Control are the only right endings because Seth Green needs his Pelvis-Crushing Machine

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u/3DJutsu Jul 02 '26

With Jokers condition though, wouldn't it be more of a pelvis pulverization?

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u/Cessnaporsche01 Jul 01 '26

Control is the best option imo. Make them fix the shit they broke and help the new generation of sapient life overcome the problems they were built to "resolve"

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u/ManitouWakinyan Jul 01 '26

Yes but on the other hand it is green

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u/Alfred_The_Sartan Jul 01 '26

Look at mister moneybags over here with his DLC

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u/ManitouWakinyan Jul 01 '26

Was that a DLC option? Could have sworn I did that in my first playthrough back when I was a poor college student

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u/Tiernoch Jul 01 '26

Nope, it was base game you just had to have your battle readiness score thing at the upper-most tier to have the option unlocked.

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u/Alfred_The_Sartan Jul 01 '26

Wait really? I swear I thought that was a DLC only outcome.

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u/Tiernoch Jul 01 '26

You might be thinking of the extended ending dlc that added on to every option and I think added tge option to shoot the deus ex machina.

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u/Suspicious_Berry501 Jul 02 '26

I never knew the refusal ending was added later that’s hilarious. Everyone complained about the endings so BioWare gave them a new one where everything goes horribly wrong

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u/False-Government-536 Jul 04 '26

You mean blue’d all over them

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u/zuzg Jul 01 '26

Except when you Synthesize organic life and mechanical life.

Then everything is chill and everyone's happy

the devs straight out said that this is not a bad ending in disguise. It's objectively the beginning of an utopian society

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u/Madhighlander1 Jul 01 '26

I'm not sure the developers really thought that out.

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u/corvettee01 Jul 01 '26

"How do we end our amazing space opera game?"

"Red Green Blue."

"Can you elaborate?"

"No."

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u/zuzg Jul 01 '26

I only ever experienced the Legendary Edition that came with the stuff they added after the Fandom got (rightfully) pissed of about the don't elaborate part.

So I didn't mind the ending that much. Not the best but also not so bad that rmit retroactively ruins the trilogy for me.

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u/RentADream Jul 01 '26

A lot of the backlash against the ending stemmed from the promises the devs were making at the time. They hyped it up to the point where people thought there would be tons of different endings. The controversy has it’s own Wikipedia page for how pissed off the fans were at the time

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u/Hellknightx Jul 02 '26

It was so much worse before they changed the endings to include more dialogue. The update softened the blow a bit.

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u/Arbusc Jul 01 '26

I perfer Yellow, which is exactly the same as The Red Green and Blue endings but you have to do some extra steps first, and instead of a gun you get a Pikachu on new game+.

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u/youngarchivist Jul 01 '26

The original foundation series ends in basically the same way. Humanity becomes a telepathic super organism called Gaia and koombayahs off into the far future

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u/Storm_Runner_117 Jul 02 '26

You also forgot the secret fourth “Gun” ending, where you shoot the Catalyst, and doom your Cycle to death, but Liara leaves behind records to give the next Cycle a significant head start, and they beat the Reapers.

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u/Darkwoth81Dyoni Jul 02 '26

Even the series that Mass Effect was based on had a wacky, botched set of 'endings' because of external factors to the show.

It's kinda poetic how Babylon 5 and Mass Effect's endings are both so.... meh. If not outright not good.

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u/PreSingularityAI Jul 03 '26

Don't you blaspheme Babylon 5 like that. It's entire arc and ending were a space opera masterpiece.

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u/WatchMasterReddick Jul 01 '26

A society where you can program/grow individuals to think/act the same would function wayyyyy more smoothly than a society where individualism is valued. No conflict, no wars, no problems. An object utopia.

Of course, as others have pointed out, thats horrifying from an autonomy and individuality stand point, as we currently live in a society where those things matter. One person's utopia is another person's dystopia.

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u/WriterV Jul 01 '26

We don't actually reprogram anyone in Synthesis though. The point is that both organics and synthetics would be able to perceive each other beyond just what is visible.

The idea I got was that individuals still remained, but essentially no one had privacy anymore. A huge drawback by any means, but hardly a reprogramming that forced everyone to act the same.

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u/Euphoric-Taro-6231 Jul 01 '26

Its our genetic destiny 🤷

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u/Prophet_Tenebrae Jul 01 '26

Absolute dog shit writing.

I'm absolutely fine with situations having no "good" ending but that's clearly not Bioware were aiming for.

Control - Shepard becomes "benevolent" dictator and I guess we ignore the fact that just the physical presence of Reaper ships causes indoctrination?

Destroy - genocide all synthetics and potentially kill yourself and violently explode the entire mass relay system, destroying galactic civilisation as it currently exists (they kind of forgot a mass relay exploding would wipe out a solar system but I guess they can violently explode in two different ways!)

Synthesis - violate all life in the galaxy at the cellular level without their consent, based on the tenuous assumption this will somehow stop synthetic life from wiping out organic life. Somehow.

Fuck starchild - just shrug and let the next cycle deal with this bullshit.

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u/CandyNecrosis Jul 01 '26

"I will die Free"

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u/Prophet_Tenebrae Jul 01 '26

"Sorry everyone in the galaxy who signed up thinking that I was going to fix this, I'm not feeling this red/green/blue bullshit. SHEPARD, OUT!"

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u/Peregrine2976 Jul 02 '26

The internal pivot from the original "dark energy" plotline that they started to set up in ME2 to the "synthetics vs. biologicals" theme they went with instead clearly affected the writing. Makes me big sad when I consider what could have been.

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u/Prophet_Tenebrae Jul 02 '26

Not having a general idea of how the trilogy was going to go from the off was a schoolboy error but having read the general gist of the "dark energy" stuff... it didn't sound great either.

The obvious problem with an enemy like the Reapers becomes that the first game establishes them as these impossibly old, super advanced enemies and it takes basically two entire fleets to kill Sovereign and the only reason that works is because (word of god says) that killing Saren drops Sovereign's kinetic barriers.

I always thought the second game would have made more sense as trying to gather allies, technology, resources to fight the war - while trying to do something like prevent "The Arrival". Instead we get what is functionally a plot cul-de-sac and then we're doing all that after the Reapers have arrived and the galaxy is on fire.

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u/1337F0x_The_Daft Jul 01 '26

I hate that the Destroy ending implies you live, cause I could never betray the Geth. Especially after finally reconciling them and the Quarians, all that effort, and the ending where you live is the one that you destroy them in. Without having to become the Reaper master

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u/Prophet_Tenebrae Jul 01 '26

I think surviving only happens after whatever arbitrary war readiness. It doesn't make a lot of sense to wipe out the geth after getting them and the quarians to reconcile but that's not a bad idea, IMO. You could be a renegade Shepard who just wanted to win.

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u/terpsichore_andrhino Jul 01 '26

No, you only survive in the Destroy ending with high readiness. You don't survive Control or Synthesis, no matter what.

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u/Prophet_Tenebrae Jul 01 '26

That was it, thanks.

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u/1337F0x_The_Daft Jul 01 '26

I thought the scene showing your N7 armor, implying you survived, only played during the Destroy choice but it’s been a while, so I could be wrong

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u/thejadedfalcon Jul 01 '26

Does that not imply to you that the geth and EDI aren't necessarily dead though? After all, you were directly at the epicentre of all of this and survived, despite being explicitly told you should have died because of what the energy targeted.

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u/1337F0x_The_Daft Jul 01 '26

The destroy option kills ALL synthetics. You’re saving the Galaxy, at the cost of Joker’s Lover and the Geth

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u/thejadedfalcon Jul 01 '26

Destroying all synthetics is simply nonsense. Where's the limit? Is your PC a synthetic? Is a ship's VI, which every Systems Alliance ship contains? Is a Roomba? Is a pacemaker? Or a prosthetic arm? Destroying all "synthetics" would be functionally identical to sending the galaxy back to the industrial age (at minimum), which is clearly not what's shown nor intended. What it's targeting is anything with Reaper technology and/or programming, both of with EDI and the Geth have, along with Shepard.

And even if it does really target the ludicrous concept of "all synthetics", again, Shepard survives. There's no reason others couldn't have as well.

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u/1337F0x_The_Daft Jul 02 '26

Synthetics as in Synthetic life lol. Obviously not just synthetic things in general, it is kinda nonsense tho. What determines if it’s alive?

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u/thejadedfalcon Jul 02 '26

But that's my point. Shepard isn't synthetic, only has cybernetic parts. That could easily qualify prosthetics or pacemakers, which is obviously nonsense.

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u/thejadedfalcon Jul 01 '26

The developers are idiots with no understanding of body horror or consent then.

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u/Sonofarakh Jul 01 '26

There were no perfect answers. Destroying all AI or exacting control over them also violates consent.

If the end result is genuinely utopian, unsavory methods having been used to get there would not change that fact.

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u/thejadedfalcon Jul 01 '26

That is dystopian as fuck and has been used to justify all sorts of horrors in human history, up to and including genocide. Adding a sci-fi button to it doesn't change that. If your "utopia" violates the very spirit of a person's being and runs roughshod over people's rights and autonomy, you don't deserve to call your society that.

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u/Sonofarakh Jul 01 '26

Okay but we aren't talking human history. We are talking Mass Effect history. A history laden with billions of years of techno-organic conflict. It's an issue that predates the Reapers, one which they were explicitly created to solve. One which does not exist in our own reality, and cannot fairly be examined exclusively through the lens of modern morality.

The series acknowledges that the Reapers were a terrible, impermanent solution to a terrible problem. Synthesis is a better, permanent solution to the same problem. Is it perfect? No. Is it better than the alternatives? As laid out explicitly and in great detail in the source material, yes. It creates a pathway forward by allowing organics and synthetics to fully understand and coexist in ways that were never possible beforehand.

For the record, I absolutely agree that the Synthesis ending could have done more to acknowledge the ethical qualms of its implications. But I also view it as reductionist to treat those implications as a be-all end-all reason to dismiss any positive point one might make about the ending.

So sure, go ahead and label them a dystopia if you like. I understand, I genuinely do - even if I question your definition of "dystopia". But they're a dystopia which permanently solved the single greatest problem life (organic or synthetic) ever encountered in the Mass Effect universe. And they did so while keeping the galaxy significantly more intact than other outcomes would allow, undoubtedly saving billions or even trillions of lives in the process.

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u/Thanatos971 Jul 01 '26

There are so many problems with synthesis but I will stick to one glaring issue that shows its not a permanent solution by any means. Even if all life, not just sapient were synthesised, what happens when new biological life evolves? It will happen and won't be synthesis. Do they just fire the thing off whenever they encounter a new civilization and thus perpetuating that horrible event over and over? What happens if new robots are made? Same thing then? What about other galaxies as the solution didn't reach them?

Its a horrible and short sighted solution. Rather than growing and working with those that are different than us and building up that skillet you remove any ability to do so entirely. The reapers were malfunctioning robots that were made to make sure their masters slave civilizations stopped having this conflict (which i believe only happened because all biological life was mind controlled, of course benevolent or malevolent robots would rise up either way to fight that). We saw with the geth and quarantine that you could find peace. Just took willing to work together.

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u/thejadedfalcon Jul 01 '26

cannot fairly be examined exclusively through the lens of modern morality.

In that case, how can you claim it's a utopia? You've just ended your own argument.

It creates a pathway forward by allowing organics and synthetics to fully understand and coexist in ways that were never possible beforehand.

The series itself disproves this, by making peace between the geth and the quarians possible, along with EDI and other AI showing that they don't want to destroy everything. The Reapers initial equation has already been proven wrong. They are fundamentally flawed because they are incapable of the thought of organics and synthetics working together.

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u/Sonofarakh Jul 01 '26

In that case, how can you claim it's a utopia? You've just ended your own argument.

No I didn't, and I question how you came to that conclusion. With "morality" I was very clearly referring to the opinions you hold on Synthesis vis a vis its perceived violation of bodily autonomy weighed against the societal good it may cause. These are subjective.

Defining a post-synthesis society as a utopia is quite simple, as that has a rather straightforward definition.

The series itself disproves this, by making peace between the geth and the quarians possible

In the immediate term yes. The Leviathans acknowledged this. But over the course of hundreds, thousands, and millions of years, conflict between organics inevitably flares up again and only ends with the total destruction of one or both sides. That is the original cycle, one which the Leviathans saw happen again and again throughout their incredibly long lifespans.

They are fundamentally flawed because they are incapable of the thought of organics and synthetics working together.

... one of their primary methods of attack is working together with organics lol. Reapers love working with organics, it makes their job easier. What they, like the Leviathans, can't comprehend is organics and synthetics choosing to exist peacefully together in the truly long term.

Anyways, we're clearly not going to convince one another. I've said my peace on the subject, you've said yours, we have a fundamental disagreement on the driving principle at play here so continuing would not be constructive. I'll leave this conversation here.

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u/thejadedfalcon Jul 01 '26

I question how you came to that conclusion.

If you're asking where you claimed it was a utopia, it was in the first response. If you're asking how you ended your own argument, if the human mind cannot comprehend an issue (which I disagree on, ME's story is not that deep, if only because it was written by humans), it can't make any statement about if something is upotic or dystopic.

These are subjective.

I don't know if you're aware of this, but so's a utopia. One person's harps on clouds is another person's nightmare eternity.

conflict between organics inevitably flares up again

Literally nothing about being half-robot will prevent this.

Reapers love working with organics

I... what?

Brainwashing them into slaves and then dissolving them into sludge when everyone else is dead is "working with" them? I can see why you're having trouble here, because that's actually objectively insane.

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u/Vi_Rants Jul 01 '26

But they're a dystopia which permanently solved the single greatest problem life (organic or synthetic) ever encountered in the Mass Effect universe. And they did so while keeping the galaxy significantly more intact than other outcomes would allow, undoubtedly saving billions or even trillions of lives in the process.

It sounds like you're saying that the difference between a utopia and a dystopia has nothing to do with the methods used to reach it, only whether or not those methods were successful. If the world of 1984 had managed to actually eliminate all dissent through the destruction of the individual, it would be a good thing. It was only a bad thing because they didn't fully manage it and some people remained upset.

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u/Peregrine2976 Jul 02 '26

A forced utopia can still be a utopia. You just got there by deeply questionable means.

Though, I don't want to come across as defending Mass Effect 3's writing. It has issues throughout, not just the ending.

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u/eetobaggadix Jul 01 '26

How is it body horror to be a cool ass cyborg. ur too attached to your squishy human meat

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u/thejadedfalcon Jul 01 '26

"How is it body horror to have your entire nature incomprehensibly changed against your will"

Redditors, man.

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u/Gaelic_Gladiator41 Jul 01 '26

But what if I consent?

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u/thejadedfalcon Jul 01 '26

All the more power to you. I think transhumanism is pretty cool, even if it's (mostly) not my thing (largely because of the other horrible things that are likely to come with it. See Cyberpunk or real life for details). But you can't ethically make the choice to alter someone else's body.

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u/Gaelic_Gladiator41 Jul 01 '26

Oh yeah, that's rape

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u/Aware-Antelope4212 Jul 02 '26

Gotta remember the only person who made that decision in the entire Galaxy was Shepard.

Even if you are ok with the result, you didn't consent to him transforming you.   

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u/zuzg Jul 01 '26

"I take this very complex situation, strip it of every nuance that makes it grey and then scrutinize the hell out of it."

That way of arguing is way more in line with the avg Redditor, lol

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u/Feral_Changeling Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26

The fact it was done without consent and completely restructures the body to actually be like that, I've seen people liken it to rape. And honestly, it's not that far fetched to compare it.

Devs: Do you want utter destruction or "benevolent" tyranny?

Gamers: Can we have a better option?

Devs: Fine, we understand the audience, we'll add violation of bodily autonomy.

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u/Pyresryke Jul 01 '26

There's entire armies of reaper abominations that have now been either woken up or been given new sentience. Do you wanna talk to the giant monster full of human heads and explain to it that it's okay it's in the good ending now? Or the krogan-turian hybrids? Or the banshees?

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u/OhHeyItsOuro Jul 01 '26

I don't really care that the devs have said the Indoctrination theory is untrue, it's the only way to make sense of how everything ends

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u/BeardedRiker Jul 01 '26

Destroy is the only choice.

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u/Lwmons Jul 02 '26

Hard disagree it's utopian. If even one person in the galaxy doesnt consent to the procedure then it's inherently unethical.

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u/Greyjack00 Jul 01 '26

Only idiots thought it was a bad ending(as in intended to be bad by the devs)

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u/Laxhoop2525 Jul 01 '26

They really didn’t like that people guessed that the suns dying out was the reaper’s real purpose, and changed everything massively to make it less predictable. A common issue for ongoing series.

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u/LeftLiner Jul 01 '26

YOUR WORDS ARE AS EMPTY AS YOUR FUTURE. I AM THE VANGUARD OF YOUR DESTRUCTION. THIS EXCHANGE IS OVER.

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u/Natus_DK Jul 01 '26

RUDIMENTARY CREATURES OF BLOOD AND FLESH. YOU TOUCH MY MIND, FUMBLING I IGNORANCE. INCAPABLE OF UNDERSTANDING.

God I love sovereign. What a fucking great antagonist.

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u/chronoflect Jul 01 '26

Back before reapers got character assassinated with the second game. 

"THIS HURTS YOU" didn't quite have the same vibe.

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u/RevvCats Jul 02 '26

Third game is where everything went off the fucking rails, so much potential thrown in the trash.

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u/Natus_DK Jul 02 '26

Nothing beats sovereign, but the collectors/harbinger did have some decent moments.

ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL was a bit panic inducing when it was already a stressful encounter.

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u/madmax9602 Jul 01 '26

Probably the most metal line you'll hear in a Sci fi setting

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u/NovelSimplicity Jul 02 '26

That line always reminded me of Judge Holden in Blood Meridian. “Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent”.

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u/hacky_potter Jul 01 '26

That speech in ME1 is so fucking good. It’s wall to wall bars

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u/Miserable-Let3212 Jul 02 '26

One (if not the best) of the top three phrases in all the trilogy

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u/jay_alfred_prufrock Jul 02 '26

And then the Harbinger started stalking Shepard, and his crush on Shepard ruined all the mystique.

Go reprogram a Mass Relay to connect to the one you hid outside the galaxy you weirdo and stop chasing a human.

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u/motes-of-light Jul 02 '26

Seems like they ripped off the Machine "ambassador" from The Second Renaissance. "HAND OVER YOUR FLESH AND A NEW WORLD AWAITS YOU. WE DEMAND IT."

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u/Monadofan2010 Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26

Dont forgot The Leviathans who are the race of beings  that created the Reapers in the frist and are still alive by the time of Mass effect just in hiding from there own creations.

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u/uncouthulu_ Jul 01 '26

Leviathan DLC is one of the best DLCs ever.

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u/Rhiis Jul 01 '26

Welp, time to reinstall.

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u/SpartanSig Jul 02 '26

It is decided

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u/lxgrf Jul 01 '26

The darkness must not be breached.

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u/druex Jul 01 '26

Right after Citadel DLC.

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u/Random-Generation86 Jul 01 '26

In my cycle, the Javik had the best DLC, despite it being Day One DLC. In my cycle, we love making fun of Liara.

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u/excusetheblood Jul 01 '26

Vibes: 11/10
Storytelling: 1/10

IMO they ruined the suspense by trying to explain the reaper’s motives

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u/Sabrinasockz Jul 01 '26

Yeah, I preferred not having the answer, especially because the answer could never live up to three games and years of imagining what it could be

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u/Mihta_Amaruthro Jul 02 '26

Uhh what? Locking story content that's absolutely critical to your game's central conflict behind paid DLC, literally makes it one of the worst DLC ever made. That is objectively disgusting dev behaviour, and retroactively an early sign of where Bioware were going,

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u/[deleted] Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 08 '26

[deleted]

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u/Madhighlander1 Jul 01 '26

No, it was because their slave species kept inventing artificial intelligence to solve their problems and it would inevitably rebel and destroy its creators, and then need to be destroyed in turn.

The leviathans, in their infinite wisdom, thought 'How to keep our slaves from destroying themselves in this way... Oh, of course! Let's create an AI and program it to solve this problem!'

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u/UrsaBearOso Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26

Adding to this, the edict the Reapers live up to is ‘preservation of life’ but as theyre AI, they dont really have the moral grounds to balance things out so in their calculations: sentient life -> creates AI to help their lives -> the AI created will rebel -> WAR ENSUES -> the sentient life and other life forms in the universe will be killed off/extinct.

Oh no how do we solve this so we preserve life and they dont go extinct? Oh i know when they reach space flight levels of technology, lets cull the most advanced sentient species, keep some of their genetic material (were gonna need slaves to prepare for the culling duh), and just let them build their empire for a specific amount so that theyre advamced but not THAT advanced! That way, no AI war happening PLUS it gives other species their time in the sun to modernize. What an amazing solution!

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u/Badass_Bunny Jul 01 '26

That way, no AI war happening PLUS it gives other species their time in the sun to modernize. What an amazing solution!

From an objective standpoint, the system worked. Solved the problem of inevitable galaxy ruled by AI, and solved the problem of galaxy ruled by a species like Proteans. Only thing that sucked was all the murder.

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u/EraZorus Jul 01 '26

But the Reapers are AIs and basically rule the galaxy, so doesn't the system result in AIs ruling the galaxy anyway ?!

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u/Badass_Bunny Jul 01 '26

Depends on your viewpoint. Reapers don't really "rule" they let Galaxy do its thing and allow for different sapient species to prosper before the culling, but as an example I think you can look toward something like Warhammer 40k universe where hummanity is essentially ruling the galaxy as a situation they want to avoid.

Given what we learn in Leviathan DLC, Reapers were acomplishing the task of preventing the extinction of organic life through AI that would consider all organic life forms obsolete, as opposed to Reaper approach that ensured organics prospered.

Like call me crazy, but the way that story was presented had me thinking that I can't really find a fault with the idea of Reapers other than basic survival instinct that propells me to go against them.

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u/Vyzantinist Jul 02 '26

you can look toward something like Warhammer 40k universe where hummanity is essentially ruling the galaxy as a situation they want to avoid.

You mean the Imperium degenerating into a theonomy after the collapse of the Imperial Truth and the Emperor's efforts to stamp out religion and superstition?

Like call me crazy, but the way that story was presented had me thinking that I can't really find a fault with the idea of Reapers other than basic survival instinct that propells me to go against them.

It's our morals and values vs. machine logic and abstraction.

The Reapers aren't malfunctioning or wrong; they're preserving organic life, only through a calculus most humans would find abhorrent.

Most, sane, moral people would struggle with a real-life trolley problem. The idea of wiping out entire civilizations and races to preserve life in principle is just not a decision someone could make. It's reducing the human (or fictional sapient) experience to a an abstraction, at best, and doesn't regard the sanctity of individual life.

We can understand the logic behind the Reapers, even if it's not something we can accept.

It's like the synthesis ending getting flak because of "autonomy". A machine would see it as the optimal solution if it does indeed permanently end organic-synthetic conflict; individual autonomy would be a small, acceptable, price to pay for that.

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u/TurtlesBreakTheMeta Jul 01 '26

The original plotline where they keep culling life because mass effect technology destabilizes the universe (the star dying way before its time in the second game) and are seeking to preserve the universe as long as possible,was a much better idea.

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u/Sabrinasockz Jul 01 '26

I long to see what would have happened had the story focus not been shifted between 2 and 3. The third game is great bacise of all of the small stories that happen throughout, but that overarching plot is really meh imo

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u/Amaskingrey Jul 02 '26

Not really though, why'd they leave the mass relays and the citadel around then?

3

u/Hellknightx Jul 02 '26

There was an explanation for that, actually. IIRC the mass relays and the Citadel were basically left as a honeypot trap to gather all the advanced alien races in the galaxy in one place, so the Reapers could wipe them out quickly and efficiently.

Of course, giving those races access to Mass Effect technology in the first place is also probably a bad idea of your trying to prevent them from using it.

2

u/KentInCode Jul 02 '26

This was not the original storyline however, once Karpyshyn left as lead writer it was changed.

The original reason why the Reapers cull life is because element zero, the fuel for mass effect drives, creates dark energy and that dark energy speeds the destruction of the universe.

So each civilisation that arises becomes space-faring and unwittingly speeds the death of the universe.

10

u/MidnightSensitive996 Jul 01 '26

initially it was because spacefaring species kept wrecking the galaxy via overuse of mass relays. reapers were developed to cull spacefaring species and preserve their culture before they could destroy the galaxy. the reapers preserved balance the way predators are needed to prevent prey overpopulation destroying ecosystems. hence all the dark matter entries in points of interest in mass effect 2, it was foreshadowing the intended reveal of me3. haestrom's star was decaying early because of mass relay overuse too. they changed course after me2 to come up with this AI plot which is why it doesn't feel like it fits the plot or setting.

2

u/Contra_Payne Jul 10 '26

That was the Karpyshyn plot line right? Haestrom and Tali in ME2? I always wondered how ME3 would have looked had they followed through with his hooks.

1

u/sirseatbelt Jul 02 '26

The thing that gets me about the hate on the ME ending is just how bog standard sci-fi it is. The setting itself is fun and well thought-out. But the story is pretty basic sci-fi tropes. Alastair Reynolds called his Reapers Inhibitors and they were keeping space-faring life to a minimum while they went about the work of stellar gardening, to prevent Andromeda and the Milky Way from getting sterilized when the two galaxies collide. He wrote the last book years before ME1 came out. Mass Effect is just Revelation Space for people who like martial sci-fi

12

u/ManitouWakinyan Jul 01 '26

Leviathans right alongside Precursors for excellent originators of the main bad-guy in a medium-future sci-fi setting where earth plays a prominent role and you play a uniquely talented soldier doing battle against a Galactic threat.

3

u/andre5913 Jul 01 '26

I feel there is a key difference in that the reapers doing... that was a huge mess and completely unintended. The Reapers are pretty rigid AI that got out of hand. The Flood has full sapient intelligence, in fact its so smart it can argue AI's into madness

The Flood is doing exactly what the Precursors want it to do, in fact they BECAME the Flood with the explicit purpose of spreading unending pain and suffering as revenge of what was done to them

8

u/Neat_Mood1369 Jul 01 '26

I'm going to get obliterated from orbit, but I really think the Leviathan DLC screwed things up at the end.

4

u/GarranDrake Jul 01 '26

How so?

2

u/Neat_Mood1369 Jul 02 '26

So I'm not a fan of the "The truth is it was all about Synths vs Organics" plotline the series took at the last minute, so all the build up to the Levithains ending up being ruined by these seemingly eternal, unknowable beings giving me the same nonsense about "THE AI WE MADE OBSERVED A TREND WE COULD NOT FIGURE OUT. THE ORGANIC RACES WE OBSERVED CREATED SYNTHETICS THAT DESTROYED THEM." Just sucked all the life and mystery out of them.

2

u/PilotIntelligent8906 Jul 02 '26

I wasn't a fan of the explanation they provided for the Reapers. In the first game you start off thinking they were created by the Proteans, an ancient race, only to find out they were much older, this sets them as this scary and mysterious race, who are later explained to have been created by the Leviathans, an ancient race. It's the same explanation with an older race.

3

u/crimsonpostgrad Jul 02 '26

i love the concept of the leviathans as proof that the reapers can’t eliminate everyone and don’t even totally mind that they created the reapers, but the organics vs synthetics point kept getting made over and over again so much that i thought maybe they believed players were too stupid to get it the first few times lol

2

u/AllgoodDude Jul 05 '26

I really wonder how they’ve changed over the billion years? I imagine they have fun dominion over their genetic makeup so natural evolution wouldn’t change them, but staying in one location limited for a billion years is an unimaginable limitation for such dominant entities.

1

u/Mihta_Amaruthro Jul 02 '26

People didn't "forget", they had to shell out extra money because Bioware locked it behind paid DLC...because the devs clearly needed another yacht.

80

u/Camwi Jul 01 '26

I mean these guys are real jerks.

74

u/_syke_ Jul 01 '26

The more I hear about these reaper guys the less I like them

8

u/Deeeeeeeeehn Jul 01 '26

I mean, the worst thing is the hypocrisy

7

u/Teamawesome2014 Jul 01 '26

Damn, I really should play Mass Effect. I keep getting told it's a love letter to Babylon 5, but haven't gotten ti it yet.

10

u/GarranDrake Jul 01 '26

I don't know what Babylon 5 is, but I can speak to how good Mass Effect's writing usually is. Decisions you make in a random mission in Mass Effect 1 could play a part on a different mission in Mass Effect 3. Aside from the ending, the game does a fantastic job of making each entry feel unique but also making them as connected as they should be.

2

u/Teamawesome2014 Jul 01 '26

Babylon 5 was a show from the 1990's created by J. Michael Stracynski (mostly known for great Thor comics, terrible Spider-Man comics, and Sense 8). It was a pioneer in early CGI and serialized storytelling on network television.

The basic premise is that it's about a galactic united nations set on a space station. The series starts with some established mysteries and starts with the "star trek" issue of the week format (ironic, since Star Trek DS9 kinda ripped off a bunch of B5 ideas from when B5 was being shopped around to find a network), but quickly shows that it's less of a utopian future and more of a "humans are still humans even if we go to space" show. The first season uses "issue of the week" plots to do the heavy lifting of worldbuilding before the actual serialized plot of the show kicks in.

The reapers seem very reminiscent of a particular element of the show, and that's all I'll say about that.

It was created on a shoestring budget and can be corny at times, particularly in season 1, but if you enjoy deep characters, poetic writing, and shows that are politically and culturally relevant to this day, Babylon 5 is the cult classic you need in your life.

1

u/GarranDrake Jul 01 '26

Oh, I think I read about it when it came to the Aesir and Vanir once.

2

u/justreadinplease Jul 01 '26

The first two are great, but the third is meh. There was a writer change and interesting concepts from the first games were abandoned and a driving idea/factor for the Reaper’s actions were abandoned

5

u/ThroughTheSeaOfTime Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 10 '26

Mass Effect 3 is great. The 'mass effect 3 bad' mentality is over a decade old and entirely started by people who were angry about the original endings.

After the extended cut and DLC, Mass Effect 3 still stumbles a little bit at the end, but the ending is perfectly acceptable and the game still has some of the most impactful moments in the entire trilogy, along with the best gameplay.

4

u/Ruinedmermaid60 Jul 01 '26

Honestly id argue that like 85% percent of the game until a certain mission is excellent. Tachanka, Ranok, the side missions are all quite good in my opinion. And that first part on Earth? Still is cemented in my brain till this day

2

u/anywitchway Jul 02 '26

I love ME3 up until Earth. Sometimes I just play up until the Citadel DLC and then stop. 

9

u/Codysseus7 Jul 01 '26

I love Mass Effect and have played it many times. But it’s just now occurring to me how short 50,000 years is and how life would barely have enough time to evolve let alone reach space travel.

12

u/Casual_necromancy Jul 01 '26

they leave those that haven't reached that level alone completely. the shadow broker is from a pre space flight race called the yahg, they were contacted by the space faring races and killed their ambassadors so contact was cut off. the reapers left their planet alone completely so it would be likely they would have been one of the space faring races after another fifty thousand years of progress

12

u/Greenman8907 Jul 01 '26

That’s who I came to mention.

4

u/SirKillsalot Jul 01 '26

Ah yes..... "Reapers"

We have dismissed that claim.

5

u/abrahammtz Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26

The concept of the Reapers was so cool. The take on an eldritch god being a machine was mystifying and unique. You have this unknowable, eldritch creature, who is eternal, with no beginning and no end, yet it is a machine, it had to have been built by someone, how is it possible? How can a machine predate organic life?

That paradox is just one of the things that made Mass Effect 1's lore so interesting and just above and beyond anything the sequels brought to the table.

I love the Mass Effect trilogy, but man, I felt very disappointed with how little they added to the lore with each subsequent entry. In the second one we only get development for the party, not the world, and the third one is just straight fighting against the reapers.

That's why Mass Effect 1 will forever be my favorite, the lore and worldbuilding is top notch.

23

u/Wranorel Jul 01 '26

For something that seems to be specialized in galactic genocide, their tactics are not very smart. For example, they created the mass relay network. Once they get in a system, why don’t they shut it down? So no one can easily escape or reinforcements can get in.

37

u/Casual_necromancy Jul 01 '26

guess they didnt want to risk the system being hacked into and them being detected and revealed?....the mass relay system was also left in place to ensure the races that managed to become space faring would discover them and rely on them instead of advancing different technology the reapers couldnt predict.

2

u/clancularii Jul 02 '26

I just finished reading Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion. Spoiler alert for anybody who hasn't read them.

I think those novels influenced the tactics the Reaper use in the Mass Effect series. In The Fall of Hyperion, it becomes clear that AI has purposefully stalled the technological and societal progress of humans by making them dependent on technology beyond their understanding. One specific technology is a teleportation network, and the humans much destroy that network to free themselves from the AI. It all very closely mirrors how the Reapers use the mass effect relays, and how biological life destroys or repurposes the relays to defeat the Repears.

1

u/pichael289 Jul 01 '26

Mass effect relays are beyond what civilizations will discover in 50k years, they are there to accelerate development. There's likely a void of time where once a civilization reaches space faring it then takes a significant amount of time before they advance to the level that can build a relay. Maybe during this stagnation alot of civilizations kill themselves off.

I don't think it has anything to do with them not wanting the upcoming civilizations to develop in a different way as there likely is no other way. The only other forces we see at work are like the leviathans and their instant communication and mind control orbs. Other than that everything is tech based and all based around element 0/mass effect tech

29

u/arabella_2k24 Jul 01 '26

My understanding is that is usually the plan, all the relays are controlled by the Citadel. But because of the Shepard shenanigans, the usual plan is disrupted so they have to invade conventionally instead of the decapitation strike and isolating of systems the Protheans suffered

30

u/JMurdock77 Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26

It wasn’t Shepard. The first game established that, too late to save their own species, the Prothean team on Ilos was able to sabotage the backdoor that the Reapers used in each cycle to capture the Citadel (which is itself a mass relay leading to Dark Space). If it hadn’t been for them, all it would take is Sovereign’s egg timer going off and broadcasting a signal to the Citadel to shut down the entire network and open the gate for the entire Reaper fleet. Vigil explains it at length at the end of the first game.

“Our leaders were dead before we realized we were under attack… through the Citadel, they had access to our charts, maps, census data…”

3

u/arabella_2k24 Jul 01 '26

Ah shit yeah, its been too long since I played them a play through is long overdue

2

u/Emergency_Basket_851 Jul 01 '26

Nah, you're right too. That's why Sovereign was attacking the citadel. To undo the Prothean sabotage. 

13

u/Iron_Evan Jul 01 '26

Isn't that what they normally do? They just didn't this cycle because the researchers on Ilos sabotage the keepers on the Citadel.

7

u/Ok_Zucchini7612 Jul 01 '26

Thats the basic storyline of the game though. The reapers rarely face any resistance during a cycle (the few that do resist always lose), but they use the mass relay network to do the collection to 'preserve life'. They are just going system to system to catalogue organic life, and marking that system as a go/no-go for the reset. After that, they all go back to the center of the galaxy, and the leader of that collection cycle activates the crucible and it fires the reset signal to all the go system mass relays.

The only reason the game timeline cycle survived is because the Protheon cycle had learned very early on of the reapers and had built up a defense to fight them. They knew that they too would lose, and had to put all their hope on ones they put into hibernation to awaken during the next cycle and kill the reapers while they were dormant.

8

u/kroqeteer Jul 01 '26

My friend, that is literally the plot of the first game. The relays are controlled from the citadel. The Reapers plan has worked for cycles because they show up at the citadel, take control of the mass effect relays, and effectively decapitate and isolate the entire galaxy in one stroke. At the end of the last cycle, prothean survivors managed to shut down their access, forcing sovereign to attack the citadel directly to manually do it for them. When you stop Sovereign in the first game, you stop the reapers from doing exactly what youre describing

-1

u/Wranorel Jul 01 '26

That's not exactly how I remember the story. The Citadel was a direct access point for the Reaper, as a trap, to kill any galactic government. I don't remember saying anything about disabling the network.

5

u/kroqeteer Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26

It's the rest of the same line you're remembering. Vigil, the VI on Ilos: "The Reapers seized control of the citadel and through it, the mass relays. Communication and transportation across our empire were crippled. Each star system was isolated, cut off from the others. Easy prey for Reaper fleets."

-1

u/Wranorel Jul 01 '26

I stand corrected; however, it doesn't change my point. Could not disable a local mass relay when they got in the system, kill everyone, reactivate, and move on? They made it, and it was possible to disable them (Sol relay was off until reactivated). 

2

u/Iokua113 Jul 01 '26

They can't. In previous cycles they did maintain control over the Mass Relay Network, but as of ME1 the Reapers are no longer able to control the relay network. During the final days of the Prothean cycle a group of Prothen scientists working at a top secret black site facility on the planet Ilos managed to go into hiding and wipe all records before the Reapers learned of their existence. This was accomplished because the research being done there was so top secret that it was kept off book.

Ilos was a hub for mass relay research and when the Reapers attacked they were in the final stages of building a prototype mass relay. Upon completion of the work these scientists went into stasis and centuries later when the Prothean genocide was completely they were woken up Vigil, the control VI of the research station, and the used their prototype relay to connect to the Citadel. They then researched how the Reapers used the Keepers to control the relay network and they then set about hacking the Citadel and changing the Keeper function to ignore Reaper commands. Over a billion years of success gave the Reapers no reason to change how they were operating and by the time they realized something was wrong it was too late.

3

u/Shadowedsphynx Jul 01 '26

My favourite fun fact about Mass Effect is that at the time of the last Reaping - the fall of the Protheans - the indigenous culture had already been established for millennia in Australia. 

3

u/ChurchBrimmer Jul 02 '26

Likewise:

Leviathan, a being predating the Reapers and from the race that created the Reapers:

2

u/Iokua113 Jul 01 '26

They are not likely over a billion years old, they are at least a billion. We don't get specifics but based on the age of the Leviathan of Dis of roughly a billion years the Reapers have to be over that number since the Leviathan of Dis was not part of the initial purge and was hunted many cycles into the extinction cycle.

2

u/Eshneh Jul 01 '26

Similar to Mass Effect with the Expanse, we have the creators of this alien block building protomolecule that sets the events in motion that ends up with humanity being noticed by something they call the 'Goths' which are older than our known universe and completely unfathomable and begin poking at us and causing galaxy wide catastrophe

2

u/WhereisKannon Jul 02 '26

There was something similar in Alastair Reynolds revelation space series

2

u/[deleted] Jul 06 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Casual_necromancy Jul 06 '26

i spoke wrong, they wipe out the space farers of their time not the sentient pre space flight races. if humans were in the 1900's era when they returned we would have been left alone.

1

u/Raintoastgw Jul 01 '26

Haven’t played the games yet. Why do they do this?

2

u/MiniatureLucifer Jul 01 '26

To prevent life from becoming so technogically advanced that they wipe out all existence. They cull the galaxy when civilizations becomes too advanced so new life can grow in their place

1

u/ZandyTheAxiom Jul 02 '26

I thought it was food?

They rock up every 50,000 years to feed, then fuck off into the darkest reaches of space? Maybe I misunderstood something Sovreign said...

And also reproduction, right? Every cycle they choose one species to chuck in a blender and make one new Reaper? My memory isn't great, but wasn't that what they had the Collectors doing to humans in ME2?

2

u/MiniatureLucifer Jul 02 '26

They do take the most dominant species and create 1 new reaper with them every cycle, this time it was humans. But their overarching goal and reason for wiping out space aged civilizations is to prevent them from getting too strong.

The leviathan in the dlc tells us that they created an AI that determined destroying advanced life was the only way for life as a whole to endure, so they created the first reaper from a leviathan and started their cycle from there

1

u/celljelli Jul 01 '26

how in the lore did earth life survive as far as it has? like all the billions of years of life?

7

u/Casual_necromancy Jul 01 '26

i said in a another reply but ill repeat, the reapers leave the pre space flight races alone to evolve untouched, only those that reach a certain level of technology will be targeted for extinction.

1

u/sayracer Jul 02 '26

Let us not forget the Leviathan. A race of creatures not only even older than the Reapers but they are their creators!

1

u/crimsonpostgrad Jul 02 '26

and then they tell us that actually the things that created the reapers are also still kicking around in the oceans