three cycles really screwed the reapers. The innusauon created biotics in their war with the Thoi han. The protheans reprogrammed the keepers with the conduit and then Shepard was able to figure it all out. Throw in the millions-billion year old design of the crucible and their doom was inevitable
Each one of your lore videos honestly makes me look all the more forward to Mass Effect Andromeda as not just the game itself but what kinds of, how many or if at all tie ins/references to what occurred in the original trilogy.
Love the videos. I just couldn't resist adding that just to assume that the reapers set a cycle of 50,000 years ever since their creation around 1 billion years ago, that's 20,000 cycles of sentient life they wiped from the milky-way galaxy since their creation which is.. damn lol
I've come to the conclusion that there are less than 20,000 reapers. Now you may ask, "how did you come to that conclusion?" or "That isn't possible since Sovereign said that "Our numbers blacken the skies of every world. You will never escape your doom." 1. One billion years ago, the first reaper was created and a new reaper has been created every 50,000 years. 1 billion divided by 50,000 is 20,000; hence 20,000 reapers. 2. Sovereign also said that Reapers have no beginning, no end, are eternal, and are the pinnacle of evolution and creation. Those are all lies. Like Shepard said, "Reapers are machines. And machines can be broken." Quite frankly I believe that Sovereign was so old and used to the destruction of one civilization after the next that he grew an overconfidence in himself and his fellow reapers that all organics regardless of what time or what planet they came from are all the same. Genetic mutations of the galaxy. Shepard proved him wrong for the first time in 20,000 cycles. That is why I love Mass Effect. Against all odds, the mere will of men always prevails no matter what the situation.
You are wrong about the numbers. That number only works if there is 1 space fairing species for every cycle but as seen in the current and several cycle before that, there are several species that existed at a given cycle that can be created into Reapers. So there is more than 20,000 reapers for sure. Sovereign is right about them as the pinnacle of evolution though. It has been shown, time and time again that every advance biological life only paves way to AI. Like Sovereign said, their "Existence are internal and infinite" and Shepard's Existence is "only measured in years and decades"
One sovereign class reaper is made every 50000 years out of the best race around but the smaller destroyer class are made of any other usable space faring race. Lets take this cycle Humans due to shepards action would likely be made into a capital ship class reaper With a destroyer class being made for one of each of the other big races So we potentially get 6 to 8 destroyer class ships depending on the bar the reaper have with the races who dont cut it being made into collector like opritives
Shepard wasn't the first to prove them wrong. The protheans did a lot of that to, by sending javik to our time. And by stopping the reaper invasion from happening earlier, the reason Sovereign had to attack the citadel in the first place, was becouse that the Prothean had blocked the "start invade" signal (Sovereign was a scout), so if it wasn't for the Prothean, the reapers would have appered before mass effect 1, at the citadel with their entire fleet, and killed the leading goverment. Other than that, after the Prothean extinsion, the reaper made the collectors (to make sure, their next invasion wouldnt go as bad as when they fought the Protheons) So what makes our cycle different, is that the Prothean gave us a huge advanges, but what made the Prothean cycle different? I would say biotics. 2 races in the cycle before the Protheon cycle battled, when their ships went down they polutted multiple planets with eezo (element zero), and this eezo polution ended up causing biotics.
That's wrong. As @sudgeki zero said, plus one more thing. "One billion years was the estimated age of a genetically engineered starship" is what we heard, but it was an assumption based on a 'downed' reaper found by the batarians, which does not exclude the possibility of any number of not 'downed' reapers being much older, even 2, 5 or ~13 billion years old. If the universe is approximately 14 billion years old, and the leviathans were the first race in this galaxy (hypothetical example), then it's possible the reapers' numbers would literally darken the skies of all worlds. Though there weren't really THAT many reapers shown in ME3. Also, IIRC dominant (read "numerous") races were all made capital ships, while 'lesser' races were made into those much cooler looking "small" destroyers, which would've upped their numbers in the current cycle by ~4 capital ships (turian, human, asari, salarian) and maybe 8 destroyers (batarian, volus, hanar, drell, vorcha, krogan, elcor, quarian could be such races I know of), but of course only if the reapers wouldn't have just annihilated them or turned them into collector-esque slaves. Finally, note that the writer of ME left BW/EA during or after ME2, so it's entirely possible that Sovereign didn't "lie", simply the script changed after the first act, which could no longer be changed. E.: by the way, 1 billion year would allow for 20,000 harvests, multiplied by the number of advanced civilizations (let's count with 10), which would add up to ~200,000 reapers. If they're 2By old, then that's ~400,000, if 13By, then that's ~2,600,000 reapers. Skies dark enough yet? :)
Great job man, it's been a wile sense I played these games but love watching your vids to refresh my memory in the lore makes me really want to play them again, fingers crossed for remastered announcement at e3
This is one of the only channels that has Mass Effect lore videos and although I know quite a bit about Mass Effect is always fun to refresh and learn more thanks Minius GC.
Levithans, the first Precursor spcies to unanimously win the Darwin award. One has to really wonder how an hyper advanced species like them could be some stupid at the same time. just look at the protheans, much less advanced but a billion times smarter *and* wiser, God I really like the Protheans (Best species of ME by far)
I don't think so. At the end of the day the Krogan weren't good enought, the Protheans fought the Reaeprs for hundreds of years even while their empire was fragmented and suffered a decapitation strike during day one
Well... Uplifted, used then infected, they really didn't get the chance to shine, but if it wasn't for the genophage, they might have been ruling the galaxy by the time of ME1. On the other hand, if the protheans were 'infected' with such a genetic mutation... And still, the krogan are undoubtedly more durable than the protheans, and also a lot crazier.
You know, one thing I've always wondered about the reapers was if something like an electromagnetic pulse weapon would've worked against them. They are machines, with intelligence, and they require electrical systems to continue operating. There would've been A LOT of collateral damage with every use of an EMP weapon, but I have to believe it would've rendered a reaper inoperable if detonated within close enough proximity. Or maybe their shield technology was such that it would protect against it. Who knows. Just a shower thought.
One thing I noticed about the trilogy from my understanding, is that the reapers are supposed to make a new reaper for every cycle. The reaper is suppose to physically reflect the main species of the cycle. But all of the ones you see are very similar. I may have misunderstood that, but that's one thing that bothered me a little bit.
+Patrick Adams It's possible that the reflection of the original race is kept inside the massive reaper structure. It's pretty clear that the proto-reaper in ME2 is human. I am just guessing though.
Pronunciation - You'll notice that the last part of this video features a whole bunch of planets and alien races that weren't said out loud during the Mass Effect trilogy. So . . . I had to guess. I'm probably pronouncing most of them wrong. If a system was named after a certain earth culture then I tried to pronounce everything in that system with that language. The planet Eingana might be named after an aboriginal goddess, so I tried to pronounce it that way. But ultimately I chose to pronounce things in a way that I both liked and could reasonably say. If you know the correct pronunciations to those alien races and planets referenced in this video please put them in the comment section for everybody.
Fuck yes! A new lore video! I love you and hate so much at the same time, I need to catch up on school work but I can't help but watch your vids xP keep up the good work!
+Minius GC There was also Klendagon(found it in ME1) that has a thousands of kilometers wide canyon that runs along its surface. "Klendagon's most striking feature is, of course, the Great Rift valley that stretches across the southern hemisphere. What is most fascinating about the Rift is that it does not appear to be natural. The geological record suggests it is the result of a "glancing blow" by a mass accelerator round of unimaginable destructive power. This occurred some thirty-seven million years ago." -extract from ME1
One significant issue related to the Reapers is that they've made the Milky Way galaxy very unique. Without the Reapers, the Milky Way would have developed along very different lines. Hundreds or even thousands of civilizations might have sprung up throughout the galaxy, and there's no guarantee that the leviathan species would have survived billions of years of that (especially if a species or two came along that were able to resist their thrall). There are just so many variables that could lead to any number of different species developments in the galaxy. But since the Reapers did away with all that, civilizations in the Milky Way are being scrapped every 50,000 years or so. But what about other galaxies? Will the Pathfinder and his/her crew find Andromeda to be teeming with civilizations that are super-advanced because a force like the Reapers was never encountered? Or will Andromeda prove that the Reapers were right? Will the Pathfinder and his/her crew encounter mainly artificially intelligent beings that wiped out their creators (and perhaps most other organic life as well) long ago?
+InJeffable This is a huge factor. I assume there will be some reason as to why the Andromeda races can be matched technologically. It might be related to the disappearance of the Remnant.
They could have given the reapers a much better story than this honestly I wish they had just kept it a secret. They are basically just a hostile version of the geth.
hk4124 i disagree. This origin confirms that the reapers are indeed a force of nature, because they are the product of the never ending cycle of organics becoming so advanced that they create their own demise, but since they were creater by (probably) the first race to conquer the galaxy that were god-like beings, the reapers are a lot more powerful than the other synthetic lifes. This origin also makes the heretics allying with them more reasonable, since the reapers know that, unless your shepard breaks the cycle by achieving peace, the organics will always seek their destruction, this makes the "destruction of all synthetic life" ending a short sighted decision, because the cycle will repeat, because a threat like the reapers will come back. I aways hated this worship for lovecraftian style writing where being vage=good, and just claiming that "its beyond your mortal compreehension". Thats just a overhyped boogie man
Subscribed. This channel is fantastic. I know you're going to likely do video's on a number of different races, but have you considered doing background on some of the major characters? I just read Mass Effect Revelation, and I think a lore video on Saren would be awesome.
I got one for you Minius. How about the Battle of the Citadel lore from Mass Effect 1? Or it it could be a speculation piece. For instance: why did Saren need the Conduit if he himself was a council spectre and could have shut down Citadel defenses like he did on any other random Tuesday instead of attacking a human colony first. What happened to the council fleets sent to guard all mass relays linking to the Widow Nebula? When I try to work out the logic of the first game I start to peel back layers and reveal more questions. Perhaps you might be able to do a video on why the battle was even necessary or even the whole search for the conduit in general.
+Jacob “Calveers” Hutson The Easy Answer: Saren shutting down Citadel defenses can only happen in the Council chambers and would have raised red flags immediately. Thus he needed to send in an invasion force to distract and damage the Citadel's personnel and automated defenses. Sovereign could have technically played a long game of indoctrinating many individuals but the more indoctrinated, the more likely it would have been exposed. Basically the discovery of more Prothian information was the route that was both safest and most direct at the same time. The vanguard of the Reapers was trying not to expose itself. It was confident about the ultimate cycle of the Reapers, but not itself's success if it just rampaged through. The Council fleets would have arrived shortly, which is why Saren's attack was so sudden and he sprinted towards the Council chambers. It was the 5th fleet however, that followed Shepard's exploits and listened quickly to the Normandy so they arrived first. The Citadel got caught with its pants down, it just wasn't as bad as in (all?) previous cycles. The attack in total took only within hours. It would have likely taken at least hours to mobilize the other fleets.
Great video! Would it be too much to ask if you could put your sources on the bottom of the screen. It would be fun to go look for the lore in game or elsewhere
One of the most terrifying and interesting group of antagonists in all of sci fi. Reapers take the most interesting aspects of the Borg, and the most threatening of the Skynet and War of Worlds machines, to create a collective of intelligent and nearly impervious machines of grand scale. For all of the faults that that were inacted on The Reapers legacy in ME3, I still find them to be the most horrifying and memorable villains in all Sci Fi (I mean come on, do the Forerunners even come close?). I didn't really feel like I needed a twist motivation for them like in the original script for ME3 (or what we got by its conclusion). Before ME3, I just understood them to be ancient AI machines that saw the benefits and dangers of organic life, so they decided to harvest organic life for the good and enlightening things we provide, but genocide us to rid the galaxy of the bad and catastrophic potential we present. The dark energy concept pretty much contained that outright, but I'm just fine with that potential catastrophe just being implicational rather than a concrete, presentable threat. I think A.I.'s would have plenty of reason to follow that logic without the dark energy storyline laid out, and this motivation already satisified me before ME3.
I would have loved if the catalyst had other plans to unite the Galaxy for the greater good but harbinger just wanted to conquer it and then the universe and then he betrays them and locks him up and leads the reapers for his own purposes AI betraying AI.
*assuming direct control of this post* The video in which you describe the reapers was excellent. even though I'd our past to remain a mystery, I can not argue with EA and BioWare on the route they took to give a background to my kin. *releasing control*
Everyone talking about how the Catalyst and Reapers took their jobs too seriously but never talked about the Diatonic Super Mutating Dynamic Food Replicator turning Earth into a literal buffet.
correct me if I'm wrong. The Leviathan was the first shape and supposedly they harvest every 50,000 years and take the form of the harvested species. They've been harvesting for longer than that, so why do they remain in the shape of the leviathan? also, in mass effect 2 there was the proto reaper terminator. Does the new reaper reside within the leviathan shell?
+Hamid Houssaini I don't know the answer to this. My guess is that if the Mass Effect 2 reaper was complete, the human skeleton would have been inside that leviathan shell. So the same would be true of all the other reapers (if that guess is right).
+Malcolm Swoboda Thanks for the insight guys. I find the Reapers so intriguing. I feel like the leviathan dlc should've been in the game, it's so essential in everyone understanding their origin.
The entire concept of Reaper procreation never made much sense to me. Aside form their motives, logistics and their entire backstory that's riddled with retcons, inconsistances, contrivances and fallacies alike, creating one new Reaper every cycle is not just inefficient, it's unsustainable. Ignoring the question of how one Reaper or even a handful of them menaged to take on an entire galactic civilization, one must take into account that Reapers are being destroyed every cycle. In the Mass Effect timeline, the combined efforts of the galaxy menaged to take down dozens of them. Even more in the final battle. But assuming that every single cycle destroys as little as two Reapers, the ratio of created versus destroyed Reapers renders their entire species doomed to extinction. You will eventually run out of Reapers.
+TheHamsta101 Technically they use multiple races to create multiple reapers. One reaper per race from what I remember but they may create more with a single race depending on the numbers. But what you said still stands true they were very inconsistent with the lore in mass effect
True, but it's not necessarily the case -reapers were supposed to come through the citadel, the heart of galactic civilization, where they could've crippled their opponents by eliminating most of their leaders, to systematically wipe them out afterwards. If it comes as a surprise, there's the possibility of the reapers taking no casualties at all. But I agree, it's sketchy how the reapers of the earliest cycles could've wiped the galaxy clean, when there were no mass relays, no citadel, and their numbers were extremely limited. There's indoctrination, sure, but still, with insufficient numbers they couldn't have been everywhere at once, which would have allowed for a better resistance, a longer, actual war with more losses and so on.
The Batarians theorised that the Leviathan of Dis (an early Reaper) was roughly 1 billion years old? And the Reapers attack every 50,000 years? 1 billion divided by 50,000 = 20,000. The Reapers have been doing this so long, their record is at least 20,000 times, and possibly more than that.
I really wish that the Mass effect series would add aspects of 'time' to the story, especially in Andromeda. Kind of like the Dan Simmons book Hyperion and the Time Tombs. Ancient structures that were built far into the future (which could've been built by an alien race or humans? who knows?). For some unknown reason the artefacts seem to be travelling back in time. The Tombs are protected by "time tides" that rise and fall just like an ocean and those who come into contact with these 'tides' are affected in many different ways (which could play out similarly to Shepard's contact with the Prothean beacon on Eden Prime). Could this idea be intertwined by drawing a link between the two galaxies? who knows but it would be a lot of fun to play. Something obscure like this would totally blow my socks off.
I love the Reapers as antagonists in ME. Sovereign/Saren were great. Later the Collectors and Cerberus rather meh (but at least indoctrinated; they made pretty good and diverse gamplay in ME3 at least) Giving the Reapers an actual backgound in ME3 must have been a tough choice by Bioware. Honestly I have to agree with some ME-critics about the catalyst beeing rediculous. But then I always imagine it is being so damn intelligent, that its obvious stupidity actually is so smart, that a normal human like me can't comprehend it. Just like Sovereign and the destroyer on Rannoch have claimed. It is just too stupid to understand basically XD
You might think so. But isn't it more probable that my true masters... ahem... I mean the great and mighty company EA are actually awesome and we all should give them all our money? I do think so and you should follow my advise for I possess the true knowledge!
can i pick you guys brains.. i'm looking into upgrading my bud card. i was going to wait till the release of MEA was closer but in light of the delay i will be doing it sooner than later. do you think the Radeon R9 380 will have a chance of running MEA with the frostbite 3 engine. i'd be grateful for your thoughts. thanks
quick question minius. how could the ancient reaper be shot down by Leviathans? I thought, harbinger the first reaper. was created by the crucible from the Leviathan race. where as the derilect reaper. was just a capital ship.??
+Sean Bussing I don't. I have been trying to alternate between Andromeda videos and lore videos but it's not working as smoothly as I hoped. I'll try to get more specific for season two. The biggest problem is that these videos take a lot more time to do than videos on any other topic.
great vid 👍 This makes me wonder....did any of these Civilizations make it to Andromeda and if sooo.... will the 'pathfinder' interact with them? #MassEffectAndromeda
+Mark Anthony Maguire Ain´t the Remnant supposed to originate from the milky way as well? Just leaving early somehow avoiding the Reapers. Explaining how we actually make the trip to Andromeda by following their footsteps.
Duelli75 that's what I keep in asking. If you pay attention to the Story. The ship at the end of the N7 day trailer is a Super advanced ship. There is no way all the races built the ship and worked on the crucible at the same time. Next to a Reaper the most advanced ships was The Normandy and Collector ship.
+Duelli75 At this point it's just a guess. I think it would be great. But all we know about the Remnant at this point is that they were incredibly advanced and have since died off or vanished.
The 1 Billion years is a guess at best, the reaper there was killed, likely ba a leviathan, thats all we know. I personally estimate a lot longer time, since the leviathamns ahd to be quite early in galactic age to flurish that great. The galaxy is about 7 Billion years old, for the reaper cycle my guess is 5 billion years.
+Minius GC No. During the Catalyst dialog with the leviathan dlc installed, the Catalyst states that the concept for the crucible was only noticed a few cycles ago but was thought lost after the destruction of the protheans which is why they didnt take the citadel right away. It also talks about how the cycles of harvest have been going on for eons so the synthesis use of the crucible isnt even a new concept. Theyve tried a similar solution in the past but the civilization wasnt ready for the change.
+C Wallace Still puts the Inusannon on the possible crucible list. But whether or not the reapers/cataliyst knew about it doesn't mean the project wasn't worked on by previous species. It did pass on repeatedly. I assume if the reapers knew they would stop it.
+ToxicFaith Have fun then :) ME3 is the best of them in respect of gameplay, I can tell you. Make also sure to play the DLC; some of them are great (Citadel) and others actually should have been in the core game from the beginning (From Ashes, Leviathan).
+ToxicFaith Wait a sec... When you haven't played ME3 yet, What are you doing in this major spoiler vid? >:( ooops sry I didn't read 'RE'playing. Just ignore me; I'm silly. :P
+Debott I've played it, just not since i beat it back at launch. That ending crushed me. As far as the dlc i bought leviathan when it came out but when i tried to play id go for like 30 min then id get a warning "lost contact with EA servers. deactivating dlc" so i never got to play it. or see the new endings.
+ToxicFaith but if all goes well i plan to pick it all up. i really wanna see this prothean for myself and ive heard nothing but great things about the citadel dlc.
aww... that sucks. Ea surely destroyed this game to some degree. I'm sorry for you. The problem is, you can't play it offline even today as far as I know. :/
been watching these lore videos for awhile now and only just subbed sorry about that i honestly thought you would of had a huge number more subs than you do
Minius GC Ah, ok... I litterally just finished Mass Effect 3 earlier today... I'm happy to know that there's a couple DLCs to soften the blow that I'll never see another Mass Effect game with Commander Shepard in it :)
Wouldn't several new reapers be made from each cycle? In the cycle that the trilogy takes place in, there are more than 10 races. It's logical to assume that every cycle would have several races as well
+sea strider Someone at some point in the series said they only make one per cycle. But if the reapers are 'preserving life' as they claim then they should make one for every race.
Minius GC Really? I haven't seen that. Plus, it doesn't actually make sense. Not only are they failing their "preserve life" goal, but making a reaper out of every race means much greater numbers, which makes them even more powerful. Can you provide a link to where it's said?
+sea strider I'd have to really dig for a link, but it's actually the Leviathan who says 'each harvest ends with the birth of a reaper.' I took it to mean one per cycle, but I'm not sure that's true. The reaper boy child says something about how they're preserving life, but clearly doesn't understand what life is.
Minius GC WelI think it knows the distinction between species. If it didn't, it probably would've thought one reaper was enough since it now had "life"
+sea strider Well, technically they are preserving organic life. They do not destroy organic life, they destroy the organic life that represents a threat to organic life (as a whole). By destroying just the civilizations that reached a certain level of technological development (and any artificial life form that may already exist) they prevent the creation of AIs that would destroy all organic life. And we should observe that, according to the star child, this is not the final solution. With the cycles they turned the galaxy into an experiment. They were still trying to find the final/best solution for the problem. Also, I’m not completely sure, but I think it is said that the new reaper is made to preserve the cycle it came from. So the new reaper probably contains all the historical, technological and/or biological knowledge of that cycle (not just from one species, but from all).
You know I love the origins of the reapers but I think catalysts and harbinger could have been better characters and against each other you see catalyst would be like Jesus harbinger would be like Lucifer because catalyst just once the Galaxy to unite for the greater good and harbinger just wants to conquer it for his own self purposes and then harbinger betrays his father locks him up somewhere in the Galaxy where he can never be freed and watches in horror as his son runs the Galaxy for himself that would have been much more better if you asked me and then the catalyst is trying to help Shepherd stop harbinger once and for all.
I checked on my calculator and added a few more million years with how many reapers are created the numbers for the reaper swarm was almost a hundred thousand.😰
the reapers weapons are energy based while all the other races seens to still be using kinectic weapons luke gauss canons wgich is electromagnetic. .... so theoretically a race coyld choose to destroy their master relay with in their system, design ftl engines of their own n nrg based weapons that could stand up to the refers.
+GMALEON I think it might have been at some point, though I don't think that number was ever confirmed. The Leviathan DLC gives a pretty firm one billion year number however.
Fair enough. However, I could've sworn I heard 37.5 million yrs (or something close) instead of a billion. I've played all three games, and passed them, over ten times. And never heard a billion. I just wanna be sure I didn't miss one of the most important facts in the Mass Effect storyline. Could you point me towards the specific part of the Levianthan DLC were it states its a billion? Thanks!
+GMALEON It's easy to miss because it isn't in any of the dialogue. I think the only mention of that one billion year age is in the planet description for Jartar in the Dis system of the Hades Gamma cluster in Mass Effect 3. I'm pretty sure EDI says 37 million out-load in Mass Effect 2. I doubt one billion was the original mark.
OK. I guess the confusion was ultimately created by the production staff at Bioware. Such a key piece of data, that pretty much the foundation of the whole story line. Hopefully they won't make this mistakes in Andromeda!
Whoa, if the Reapers killed every advanced life on earth every 50,000 years they already did that 20,000 times, no wonder they act so cocky and superior, it´s more than routine for them. All of them failed and could only add to the Crucible, because no one had a Shepard.
+Hazver The answer here is both. Though I only recently got a PC that can run things. I've got a long time crew I run with on PS, but for ME:A I'll probably be on all 3 platforms.
Minius GC Seems like that, but the last prothean even said that he remembers the salarians where they still ate flies. That is a bit far from being in a civilisation. They are not human, but on the same level.
50,000 years is a short time if you start from the planet formation that leads to their life evolving. It actually took the human race less than that to become civilized, but almost 4 billion years to come into being according to evolutionary theory. But if you think about where humans were 10,000 years ago, 20,000, and so on, it begins to add up. 50,000 years to me sounds like a convenience for narration purposes, not an attempt to create a hyper realistic scenario in a sci-fi tale.
Also the Mass Relays and the Citadel represents the perfected Reaper harvest cycle. That is to say, because the Catalyst did not implement this right away as soon as the Reapers first were born, there were a lot of cycles that took place without the Citadel or the Mass Relays. So I don't see any reason from the Mass Effect Lore to ascertain that every cycle was actually 50,000 years. It was only perfected and repeated every 50,000 years due to the Catalyst trying to prevent the mass extinction of all organic life in the universe more effectively and with less risk.
Emperor Franz Joseph I The Dominion were a Level 3 civ. The Reapers (and the Council for that matter though only just) was a Level 4 civ. The dominion would have been utterly crushed, their only saving grace not being a reliance on Mass Relays which was still a handicap as it's take 70 years to cross the galaxy. Now The Galactic Republic/Empire on the other hand is an advanced Level 4 civ that can cross the galaxy as fast as the Reapers WITHOUT the Mass Relays, had tech that could blow a planet to smithereens and had the fucking Force which makes biotics look like a sideshow. The Death Star could have ended the Reapers singlehandedly.
Both Dominion weapons and shields are vastly better not to mention endless manpower and teleportation technology. Also the Reapers are definitely not Type IV nor is the Empire. All three are type II
Emperor Franz Joseph I A type 2 civ is solar, Firefly and BSG (either version) are good examples. ST is interstellar, Type 3. Star Wars and ME are Galactic, Type 4. And how do you figure the Dominion have unlimited manpower (cloning isn't unlimited, requiring resources, facilities and time) and teleportation (teleporting from DS9 to the GQ relied on a wormhole)? Weapons and shields? The Reapers (hell, even the Turians) would cut right thru those shields and wouldn't even notice Dominion weapons. If you really want the Reapers to get a smackdown, pit them against the Commonwealth from Andromeda. Mass Relays (though they used different terminology) so small they could be put on individual fighters, non-genocidal AI that would make Harbinger look like a country bumpkin in a conversation, bombs with a supernova's power, capital ships that could fly like fighters, battle droids 4 stories tall and an empire spanning not 1 but 3 galaxies. The Reapers' 1st wave would have jumped in on the Citadel, got swatted down like flies than the Commonwealth would have jumped into dark space and wiped out all the Reapers hiding out there. lol
The first encounter with a reaper was just awesome. Sovereign was just a giant machine that told you that you are not capable to understand why it is here nor what it does. That was just mind blowing at the time. The second one Harbinger was kinda small compared to what its mission was. From now on the story was getting "lame". Since now you got only to take care of the Collectors. The what? Some other Husk species the reapers left behind to do what exactly? Weak storytelling was the answer. Since the original story was abandoned from now on. There was still that humanoid reaper at the end of ME2. Good old times. With ME3 the story just went down... ...become just another "ohh we got a weird AI go amok"-story. Leviathan? One of the weakest parts of the story. Mac Walters really ruined what could have been a Sci-fi milestone. Good thing he´s gone now. That departure from Bioware was really just that, a good thing. Here´s hope he didn´t wreck the Andromeda story line. ;)
iM3GTR i liked ME2, too. But it felt strange when i first played it. I really loved the loyalty missions but they were given to you just like that. The story evolving around the Collectors was a bit weak. And i didn´t like the skill tree. ME1 gameplay was broken, ok. But i really like to skill Shepard. In ME2 the talents/powers were not as important as the upgrades you could research in Mordin´s lab. I don´t like that approach. ME3 got it back on track while its gameplay is really awesome. With those cryo/fire explosions, techbursts or biotic combo detonations. Just really cool shit. Love it.
+Sloth Donger The 50k cycles are a more recent development, I don’t really remember if it is mentioned since when, but it is not something that is happening since the first one.
+Sloth Donger It's safe to assume that the early cycles took longer. The leviathan pretty much says so. But there are still a ton of reapers out there. The true number of reapers probably isn't that far off your calculated guess.
+Skalarwellen Technik He didn't say they'd completely darken them, or that they'd darken them all at once. Reapers filling the skyline on Earth, for example, still fits Sovereign's words. Reapers run on intimidation since ME1. We still destroyed one in ME1.
+Sloth Donger Its a good estimate to think there are thousands to tens of thousands of Reapers, and they just find better and better ways to intimidate organics and lessen any perception that they don't literally overwhelm the galaxy. Taking the Citadel early would have cut off a ton of transportation and communication, but in this cycle, we notice that they often are split between just a few major conflict points and only send 'Destroyers' to other ones.
The one problem I have with the LEVIATHAN is how they are a AQUATIC RACE.Being a AQUATIC RACE puts some severe limitations on what that race can do.Sure it's Sci Fi and this can be solved with a DEUS EX MACHINA OR MCGUFFIN but it always made me look at the LEVIATHAN as not advanced or a supreme species.Sure they can influence other races to do they're bidding but their SIZE AND AQUATIC NATURE keeps them for the most part immobile. As for the REAPERS I also didn't like they're design either ,it just made no sense to me if they are eternal and the superior sentient beings why would they not change their physiology. I KNOW BIO WARE WAS GOING FOR THE H.P LOVECRAFT STYLE OF COSMIC BEING THAT'S ABOVE ANY COMPREHENSION TO HUMANS BUT THE REAPER DESIGN JUST DOESN'T CAPTURE THE LOVECRAFT AESTHETIC (SEE CTHULU or any FROM SOFTWARE BOSS LIKE THE AMYGDALA FROM BLOODBORN)
I believe the idea is that their home planet had a land-based thrall race which allowed them to develop technology over time (through the thralls). It's never outright said but it is implied.
Minius GC that makes sense .Maybe the reason why their design always bothered me was because people compared them to a LOVECRAFT design. I just don't see that ,the LEVIATHAN/REAPERS overall existence and back round is very LOVECRAFT (cosmic beings beyond human comprehension )but their design is just a SQUID/CUDDLEFISH.That design alone always made me feel like their is nothing special or superior about them .Along with the AQUATIC nature of them .Having marine and aquatic species that need to live in water to survive always bothers me .I know its Sci Fi or Fantasy but the limitations of being aquatic only always pulls me out of the stories immersion . Now if they made the LEVIATHAN/REAPERS look like CTHULU or the AMYGDALA from BLOODBORN I would totally buy into then as a APEX SUPERIOR RACE ABOVE HUMAN COMPREHENSION. The ANDROMEDA ANTAGONIST look great though being bi pedal human like. KEEP UP THE GOOD VIDEOS .YOUR VIDEOS ACTUALLY ARE THE REASON I WENT BACK AND GAVE MASS EFFECT ANOTHER TRY . THE COMBAT IN MASS EFFECT ESPECIALLY THE FIRST ONE WAS JUST TO CLUNKY FOR MY TASTE BUT AFTER WATCHING SOME OF YOUR LORE VIDEOS THE MASS EFFECT UNIVERSE BECAME SO INTERESTING TO ME THOSE CLUNKY COMBAT CONTROLS DIDN'T MATTER .SO THANKS
ME 2 and 3 sort of ruined the Reaper lore. They should've kept their origins hidden and their motivations "incomprehensible for organic minds" or at least used smarter writers. EA milked the lore at the expense of the suspense/sense of mystery ME 1 worked hard to create. In general I feel like ME 1 was way more adult than its sequels, which could be attributed to EA changing most of the writers. Look at pre-EA writing compared with writing like in DA 2.
Eh, I'd have accepted it (Sovereign saying 'we have no beginning/end') if it was willed, for example by the creator of Sovereign. But to be honest, I was very disappointed by Harbinger, ghostkid, and especially by the leviathans who basically spoon-fed you the not so interesting background of the reapers. Game started losing its mysterious nature with ME2, and it was utterly destroyed by ME3. Also, I wanted an all-out war, same as the protheans, not a magical solution in three colours.
Explaining the Reapers was one of the stupidest and lamest idea Bioware could have. Combined with the clusterfuck that is ME 3 the weakest of all ME games in terms of story and its use of deus ex machina really raped the story and lore of ME in general. I mean the new game is based in another galaxy essentially because the writers fucked up so much with ME 3 they pretty much said fuck it. "We wrote ourselves into a whole of creative freedom and its garbage. So lets go to another galaxy far far away."
three cycles really screwed the reapers. The innusauon created biotics in their war with the Thoi han. The protheans reprogrammed the keepers with the conduit and then Shepard was able to figure it all out. Throw in the millions-billion year old design of the crucible and their doom was inevitable
Reaper: Execute Order 66
Leviathan:... I don't get i-
Reaper: *Bwaaaaaaaaaah*
"trash talking" a reference to what the iconic reaper sound is, I totally seen what you did there sir
Random Guy they used a bear proof trash can for their distinctive sound
Jacob Fortin I know that's what the joke is
Seriously loving these lore videos. Keep up the great work!
+AmyRightMeow Thanks!
Each one of your lore videos honestly makes me look all the more forward to Mass Effect Andromeda as not just the game itself but what kinds of, how many or if at all tie ins/references to what occurred in the original trilogy.
welp :,D
That sucks
Lol 😂
4 people were Harvested in the previous cycle.
Damn you,Reapers
10 more in the remaster
@@magnumstrike1 stop
Love the videos. I just couldn't resist adding that just to assume that the reapers set a cycle of 50,000 years ever since their creation around 1 billion years ago, that's 20,000 cycles of sentient life they wiped from the milky-way galaxy since their creation which is.. damn lol
I've come to the conclusion that there are less than 20,000 reapers. Now you may ask, "how did you come to that conclusion?" or "That isn't possible since Sovereign said that "Our numbers blacken the skies of every world. You will never escape your doom."
1. One billion years ago, the first reaper was created and a new reaper has been created every 50,000 years. 1 billion divided by 50,000 is 20,000; hence 20,000 reapers.
2. Sovereign also said that Reapers have no beginning, no end, are eternal, and are the pinnacle of evolution and creation. Those are all lies. Like Shepard said, "Reapers are machines. And machines can be broken."
Quite frankly I believe that Sovereign was so old and used to the destruction of one civilization after the next that he grew an overconfidence in himself and his fellow reapers that all organics regardless of what time or what planet they came from are all the same. Genetic mutations of the galaxy. Shepard proved him wrong for the first time in 20,000 cycles. That is why I love Mass Effect. Against all odds, the mere will of men always prevails no matter what the situation.
You are wrong about the numbers. That number only works if there is 1 space fairing species for every cycle but as seen in the current and several cycle before that, there are several species that existed at a given cycle that can be created into Reapers. So there is more than 20,000 reapers for sure.
Sovereign is right about them as the pinnacle of evolution though. It has been shown, time and time again that every advance biological life only paves way to AI. Like Sovereign said, their "Existence are internal and infinite" and Shepard's Existence is "only measured in years and decades"
+sudgeking zero fair enough, friend.
One sovereign class reaper is made every 50000 years out of the best race around but the smaller destroyer class are made of any other usable space faring race.
Lets take this cycle
Humans due to shepards action would likely be made into a capital ship class reaper
With a destroyer class being made for one of each of the other big races
So we potentially get 6 to 8 destroyer class ships depending on the bar the reaper have with the races who dont cut it being made into collector like opritives
Shepard wasn't the first to prove them wrong. The protheans did a lot of that to, by sending javik to our time. And by stopping the reaper invasion from happening earlier, the reason Sovereign had to attack the citadel in the first place, was becouse that the Prothean had blocked the "start invade" signal (Sovereign was a scout), so if it wasn't for the Prothean, the reapers would have appered before mass effect 1, at the citadel with their entire fleet, and killed the leading goverment.
Other than that, after the Prothean extinsion, the reaper made the collectors (to make sure, their next invasion wouldnt go as bad as when they fought the Protheons)
So what makes our cycle different, is that the Prothean gave us a huge advanges, but what made the Prothean cycle different? I would say biotics. 2 races in the cycle before the Protheon cycle battled, when their ships went down they polutted multiple planets with eezo (element zero), and this eezo polution ended up causing biotics.
That's wrong. As @sudgeki zero said, plus one more thing.
"One billion years was the estimated age of a genetically engineered starship" is what we heard, but it was an assumption based on a 'downed' reaper found by the batarians,
which does not exclude the possibility of any number of not 'downed' reapers being much older, even 2, 5 or ~13 billion years old. If the universe is approximately 14 billion years old, and the leviathans were the first race in this galaxy (hypothetical example), then it's possible the reapers' numbers would literally darken the skies of all worlds. Though there weren't really THAT many reapers shown in ME3.
Also, IIRC dominant (read "numerous") races were all made capital ships, while 'lesser' races were made into those much cooler looking "small" destroyers, which would've upped their numbers in the current cycle by ~4 capital ships (turian, human, asari, salarian) and maybe 8 destroyers (batarian, volus, hanar, drell, vorcha, krogan, elcor, quarian could be such races I know of), but of course only if the reapers wouldn't have just annihilated them or turned them into collector-esque slaves.
Finally, note that the writer of ME left BW/EA during or after ME2, so it's entirely possible that Sovereign didn't "lie", simply the script changed after the first act, which could no longer be changed.
E.: by the way, 1 billion year would allow for 20,000 harvests, multiplied by the number of advanced civilizations (let's count with 10), which would add up to ~200,000 reapers. If they're 2By old, then that's ~400,000, if 13By, then that's ~2,600,000 reapers. Skies dark enough yet? :)
Please keep on doing these your channel is going to be huge soon with all the Andromeda hype!
Great job man, it's been a wile sense I played these games but love watching your vids to refresh my memory in the lore makes me really want to play them again, fingers crossed for remastered announcement at e3
This is one of the only channels that has Mass Effect lore videos and although I know quite a bit about Mass Effect is always fun to refresh and learn more thanks Minius GC.
Props for the creative ways to end your lore videos. It's seriously impressive how many ways people say "bye" in this series!
really enjoying this series. good stuff.
I've been really enjoying these videos, and this one was also fantastic. Keep em coming!
Levithans, the first Precursor spcies to unanimously win the Darwin award.
One has to really wonder how an hyper advanced species like them could be some stupid at the same time.
just look at the protheans, much less advanced but a billion times smarter *and* wiser, God I really like the Protheans (Best species of ME by far)
Krogan would disagree.
Disagree with what? that the Leviathans are retards?
Oh, no, of course not. They are undoubtedly retarded.
I was referring to the "best species of ME". Real survivors, them lizards.
I don't think so. At the end of the day the Krogan weren't good enought, the Protheans fought the Reaeprs for hundreds of years even while their empire was fragmented and suffered a decapitation strike during day one
Well... Uplifted, used then infected, they really didn't get the chance to shine, but if it wasn't for the genophage, they might have been ruling the galaxy by the time of ME1.
On the other hand, if the protheans were 'infected' with such a genetic mutation...
And still, the krogan are undoubtedly more durable than the protheans, and also a lot crazier.
I'd love to see a cross section picture of a Reaper. See how they work and everything
You know, one thing I've always wondered about the reapers was if something like an electromagnetic pulse weapon would've worked against them. They are machines, with intelligence, and they require electrical systems to continue operating. There would've been A LOT of collateral damage with every use of an EMP weapon, but I have to believe it would've rendered a reaper inoperable if detonated within close enough proximity. Or maybe their shield technology was such that it would protect against it. Who knows. Just a shower thought.
One thing I noticed about the trilogy from my understanding, is that the reapers are supposed to make a new reaper for every cycle. The reaper is suppose to physically reflect the main species of the cycle. But all of the ones you see are very similar. I may have misunderstood that, but that's one thing that bothered me a little bit.
+Patrick Adams It's possible that the reflection of the original race is kept inside the massive reaper structure. It's pretty clear that the proto-reaper in ME2 is human. I am just guessing though.
Me: what a lovely day
Reaper: *BRRRRRRRRRRR*
Me: what the hell is that!?
Your comment sir, just made my day. 😂
If I ever hear that sound in real life, I'd kill myself instantly. There's no running from the reapers.
Another awesome video. I am watching all of the now. :)
Pronunciation -
You'll notice that the last part of this video features a whole bunch of planets and alien races that weren't said out loud during the Mass Effect trilogy. So . . . I had to guess. I'm probably pronouncing most of them wrong. If a system was named after a certain earth culture then I tried to pronounce everything in that system with that language. The planet Eingana might be named after an aboriginal goddess, so I tried to pronounce it that way.
But ultimately I chose to pronounce things in a way that I both liked and could reasonably say. If you know the correct pronunciations to those alien races and planets referenced in this video please put them in the comment section for everybody.
Great vid, as usual.
Fuck yes! A new lore video! I love you and hate so much at the same time, I need to catch up on school work but I can't help but watch your vids xP keep up the good work!
+Minius GC You did a great job! :D
This video was very informative nice work minius
+Minius GC There was also Klendagon(found it in ME1) that has a thousands of kilometers wide canyon that runs along its surface.
"Klendagon's most striking feature is, of course, the Great Rift valley that stretches across the southern hemisphere. What is most fascinating about the Rift is that it does not appear to be natural. The geological record suggests it is the result of a "glancing blow" by a mass accelerator round of unimaginable destructive power. This occurred some thirty-seven million years ago."
-extract from ME1
Just you wait Minius. Your channel is gonna explode within about 10 minutes of BioWare finally dropping a MEA gameplay demo.
+Ben Harbaugh I'd be fine with my channel not exploding if I could get my hands on that gameplay demo now lol.
Great video I learnt a lot about the reapers , does anyone think they will come back
One significant issue related to the Reapers is that they've made the Milky Way galaxy very unique. Without the Reapers, the Milky Way would have developed along very different lines. Hundreds or even thousands of civilizations might have sprung up throughout the galaxy, and there's no guarantee that the leviathan species would have survived billions of years of that (especially if a species or two came along that were able to resist their thrall). There are just so many variables that could lead to any number of different species developments in the galaxy. But since the Reapers did away with all that, civilizations in the Milky Way are being scrapped every 50,000 years or so.
But what about other galaxies? Will the Pathfinder and his/her crew find Andromeda to be teeming with civilizations that are super-advanced because a force like the Reapers was never encountered? Or will Andromeda prove that the Reapers were right? Will the Pathfinder and his/her crew encounter mainly artificially intelligent beings that wiped out their creators (and perhaps most other organic life as well) long ago?
+InJeffable This is a huge factor. I assume there will be some reason as to why the Andromeda races can be matched technologically. It might be related to the disappearance of the Remnant.
They could have given the reapers a much better story than this honestly I wish they had just kept it a secret. They are basically just a hostile version of the geth.
hk4124 i disagree. This origin confirms that the reapers are indeed a force of nature, because they are the product of the never ending cycle of organics becoming so advanced that they create their own demise, but since they were creater by (probably) the first race to conquer the galaxy that were god-like beings, the reapers are a lot more powerful than the other synthetic lifes. This origin also makes the heretics allying with them more reasonable, since the reapers know that, unless your shepard breaks the cycle by achieving peace, the organics will always seek their destruction, this makes the "destruction of all synthetic life" ending a short sighted decision, because the cycle will repeat, because a threat like the reapers will come back. I aways hated this worship for lovecraftian style writing where being vage=good, and just claiming that "its beyond your mortal compreehension". Thats just a overhyped boogie man
Subscribed. This channel is fantastic. I know you're going to likely do video's on a number of different races, but have you considered doing background on some of the major characters? I just read Mass Effect Revelation, and I think a lore video on Saren would be awesome.
+Brian Jordan You're right. That would be awesome. I'll have to mix that in - any character with extra backstory from the books is worth covering.
I got one for you Minius. How about the Battle of the Citadel lore from Mass Effect 1? Or it it could be a speculation piece. For instance: why did Saren need the Conduit if he himself was a council spectre and could have shut down Citadel defenses like he did on any other random Tuesday instead of attacking a human colony first. What happened to the council fleets sent to guard all mass relays linking to the Widow Nebula? When I try to work out the logic of the first game I start to peel back layers and reveal more questions. Perhaps you might be able to do a video on why the battle was even necessary or even the whole search for the conduit in general.
+Jacob “Calveers” Hutson I try to keep the speculation in these videos to a minimum, but speculatory lore videos might be good in the near future.
+Jacob “Calveers” Hutson The Easy Answer: Saren shutting down Citadel defenses can only happen in the Council chambers and would have raised red flags immediately. Thus he needed to send in an invasion force to distract and damage the Citadel's personnel and automated defenses. Sovereign could have technically played a long game of indoctrinating many individuals but the more indoctrinated, the more likely it would have been exposed. Basically the discovery of more Prothian information was the route that was both safest and most direct at the same time. The vanguard of the Reapers was trying not to expose itself. It was confident about the ultimate cycle of the Reapers, but not itself's success if it just rampaged through. The Council fleets would have arrived shortly, which is why Saren's attack was so sudden and he sprinted towards the Council chambers. It was the 5th fleet however, that followed Shepard's exploits and listened quickly to the Normandy so they arrived first. The Citadel got caught with its pants down, it just wasn't as bad as in (all?) previous cycles. The attack in total took only within hours. It would have likely taken at least hours to mobilize the other fleets.
hey minus congrats on your channel growing have over a couple thousand subs nice and great video by the way
+keelah Se'lai thanks!
Dammit! It was so good, I wanted you to keep going! More please....and make them a bit longer! :)
+Kaybee Next season's videos should be longer.
cool
Great video! Would it be too much to ask if you could put your sources on the bottom of the screen. It would be fun to go look for the lore in game or elsewhere
What is that background music? Any way we could get a name or a link please?
One of the most terrifying and interesting group of antagonists in all of sci fi. Reapers take the most interesting aspects of the Borg, and the most threatening of the Skynet and War of Worlds machines, to create a collective of intelligent and nearly impervious machines of grand scale. For all of the faults that that were inacted on The Reapers legacy in ME3, I still find them to be the most horrifying and memorable villains in all Sci Fi (I mean come on, do the Forerunners even come close?). I didn't really feel like I needed a twist motivation for them like in the original script for ME3 (or what we got by its conclusion). Before ME3, I just understood them to be ancient AI machines that saw the benefits and dangers of organic life, so they decided to harvest organic life for the good and enlightening things we provide, but genocide us to rid the galaxy of the bad and catastrophic potential we present. The dark energy concept pretty much contained that outright, but I'm just fine with that potential catastrophe just being implicational rather than a concrete, presentable threat. I think A.I.'s would have plenty of reason to follow that logic without the dark energy storyline laid out, and this motivation already satisified me before ME3.
I would have loved if the catalyst had other plans to unite the Galaxy for the greater good but harbinger just wanted to conquer it and then the universe and then he betrays them and locks him up and leads the reapers for his own purposes AI betraying AI.
*assuming direct control of this post* The video in which you describe the reapers was excellent. even though I'd our past to remain a mystery, I can not argue with EA and BioWare on the route they took to give a background to my kin. *releasing control*
+Adrian Anderson I would have liked more mystery related to the reapers as well.
Everyone talking about how the Catalyst and Reapers took their jobs too seriously but never talked about the Diatonic Super Mutating Dynamic Food Replicator turning Earth into a literal buffet.
I think this topic is by far the most interesting in terms of lore in ME. Maybe it's because we know so little
poor man's necrons...
correct me if I'm wrong. The Leviathan was the first shape and supposedly they harvest every 50,000 years and take the form of the harvested species. They've been harvesting for longer than that, so why do they remain in the shape of the leviathan? also, in mass effect 2 there was the proto reaper terminator. Does the new reaper reside within the leviathan shell?
+Hamid Houssaini I don't know the answer to this. My guess is that if the Mass Effect 2 reaper was complete, the human skeleton would have been inside that leviathan shell. So the same would be true of all the other reapers (if that guess is right).
+Hamid Houssaini Shell is tribute to creators. The inside is different. The 'human Reaper larvae' would have had a Leviathan shaped shell.
+Malcolm Swoboda Thanks for the insight guys. I find the Reapers so intriguing. I feel like the leviathan dlc should've been in the game, it's so essential in everyone understanding their origin.
The entire concept of Reaper procreation never made much sense to me. Aside form their motives, logistics and their entire backstory that's riddled with retcons, inconsistances, contrivances and fallacies alike, creating one new Reaper every cycle is not just inefficient, it's unsustainable. Ignoring the question of how one Reaper or even a handful of them menaged to take on an entire galactic civilization, one must take into account that Reapers are being destroyed every cycle. In the Mass Effect timeline, the combined efforts of the galaxy menaged to take down dozens of them. Even more in the final battle. But assuming that every single cycle destroys as little as two Reapers, the ratio of created versus destroyed Reapers renders their entire species doomed to extinction. You will eventually run out of Reapers.
+TheHamsta101 Technically they use multiple races to create multiple reapers. One reaper per race from what I remember but they may create more with a single race depending on the numbers. But what you said still stands true they were very inconsistent with the lore in mass effect
True, but it's not necessarily the case -reapers were supposed to come through the citadel, the heart of galactic civilization, where they could've crippled their opponents by eliminating most of their leaders, to systematically wipe them out afterwards. If it comes as a surprise, there's the possibility of the reapers taking no casualties at all.
But I agree, it's sketchy how the reapers of the earliest cycles could've wiped the galaxy clean, when there were no mass relays, no citadel, and their numbers were extremely limited. There's indoctrination, sure, but still, with insufficient numbers they couldn't have been everywhere at once, which would have allowed for a better resistance, a longer, actual war with more losses and so on.
I wonder if any of the species from all prior time periods managed to escape to Andromeda or some other galaxy.
instant subbed. glad I just found your channel. mass effect is the shit!!!!!!
Another great video!!!!! I love lore series!!!!!
keep up the lore i just love it
I feel like you and riazor are really growing the mass effect TH-cam scene even halofollower has a mass effect TH-cam channel now
The Batarians theorised that the Leviathan of Dis (an early Reaper) was roughly 1 billion years old? And the Reapers attack every 50,000 years? 1 billion divided by 50,000 = 20,000. The Reapers have been doing this so long, their record is at least 20,000 times, and possibly more than that.
I really wish that the Mass effect series would add aspects of 'time' to the story, especially in Andromeda. Kind of like the Dan Simmons book Hyperion and the Time Tombs. Ancient structures that were built far into the future (which could've been built by an alien race or humans? who knows?). For some unknown reason the artefacts seem to be travelling back in time. The Tombs are protected by "time tides" that rise and fall just like an ocean and those who come into contact with these 'tides' are affected in many different ways (which could play out similarly to Shepard's contact with the Prothean beacon on Eden Prime). Could this idea be intertwined by drawing a link between the two galaxies? who knows but it would be a lot of fun to play. Something obscure like this would totally blow my socks off.
Mass effect 5 apparently in early development, Hope you're planning to make some new content!
Your right
A billion years of harvesting every 50k years leave us with 20 000 Reapers give or take
3:44 - What's this video footage from? Can't remember ever having seen it before
I love the Reapers as antagonists in ME. Sovereign/Saren were great. Later the Collectors and Cerberus rather meh (but at least indoctrinated; they made pretty good and diverse gamplay in ME3 at least)
Giving the Reapers an actual backgound in ME3 must have been a tough choice by Bioware.
Honestly I have to agree with some ME-critics about the catalyst beeing rediculous. But then I always imagine it is being so damn intelligent, that its obvious stupidity actually is so smart, that a normal human like me can't comprehend it. Just like Sovereign and the destroyer on Rannoch have claimed.
It is just too stupid to understand basically XD
You've been indoctrinated by Bioware to rationalise their opinions.
You might think so. But isn't it more probable that my true masters... ahem... I mean the great and mighty company EA are actually awesome and we all should give them all our money?
I do think so and you should follow my advise for I possess the true knowledge!
can i pick you guys brains.. i'm looking into upgrading my bud card. i was going to wait till the release of MEA was closer but in light of the delay i will be doing it sooner than later. do you think the Radeon R9 380 will have a chance of running MEA with the frostbite 3 engine. i'd be grateful for your thoughts.
thanks
There'll be a new generation of graphics cards this year you better wait for those
I think i'll want till September. Thanks for the input. Cheers
quick question minius. how could the ancient reaper be shot down by Leviathans? I thought, harbinger the first reaper. was created by the crucible from the Leviathan race. where as the derilect reaper. was just a capital ship.??
My thought was it was kind of a pre-reaper ship. We don't have details but the thing that crashed almost certainly wasn't a 'true' reaper.
Minius GC I see I see. thank you for the reply.
you got your self a new sub
Wooo!
great stuff minius, love this channel and the lore series!
why cant we play mass effect andromeda already! LOL
+Bluryy Man I know! Hopefully the extra time they're spending on the game will be worth it.
0:40 THOSE SHIELDS DOE
Hey Minius do you have a set schedule for these lore vids?
+Sean Bussing I don't. I have been trying to alternate between Andromeda videos and lore videos but it's not working as smoothly as I hoped. I'll try to get more specific for season two. The biggest problem is that these videos take a lot more time to do than videos on any other topic.
great vid 👍 This makes me wonder....did any of these Civilizations make it to Andromeda and if sooo.... will the 'pathfinder' interact with them? #MassEffectAndromeda
+Mark Anthony Maguire I hope this is true. It would make an awesome tie-in to the Milky Way.
that's some thinking.
+Mark Anthony Maguire Ain´t the Remnant supposed to originate from the milky way as well?
Just leaving early somehow avoiding the Reapers.
Explaining how we actually make the trip to Andromeda by following their footsteps.
Duelli75 that's what I keep in asking. If you pay attention to the Story. The ship at the end of the N7 day trailer is a Super advanced ship. There is no way all the races built the ship and worked on the crucible at the same time. Next to a Reaper the most advanced ships was The Normandy and Collector ship.
+Duelli75 At this point it's just a guess. I think it would be great. But all we know about the Remnant at this point is that they were incredibly advanced and have since died off or vanished.
REVERSE LAVA EVERYBODY'S EVERYTHING FROM CENTER OF THE EARTH
You do awesome videos!!! :-) :-) :-) :-)
The 1 Billion years is a guess at best, the reaper there was killed, likely ba a leviathan, thats all we know. I personally estimate a lot longer time, since the leviathamns ahd to be quite early in galactic age to flurish that great. The galaxy is about 7 Billion years old, for the reaper cycle my guess is 5 billion years.
keep it up man!
Didn't all those races contribute to the Crucible that the Protheans added to?
+Avi P Maybe? It's impossible to say for sure. The Inusannon probably did. They were a major race within one or two cycles of the Protheans.
+Minius GC No. During the Catalyst dialog with the leviathan dlc installed, the Catalyst states that the concept for the crucible was only noticed a few cycles ago but was thought lost after the destruction of the protheans which is why they didnt take the citadel right away. It also talks about how the cycles of harvest have been going on for eons so the synthesis use of the crucible isnt even a new concept. Theyve tried a similar solution in the past but the civilization wasnt ready for the change.
+C Wallace Still puts the Inusannon on the possible crucible list. But whether or not the reapers/cataliyst knew about it doesn't mean the project wasn't worked on by previous species. It did pass on repeatedly. I assume if the reapers knew they would stop it.
i'm replaying the trilogy now and just finishing up me2. this will be the first time i've played me3 since launch.
+ToxicFaith Have fun then :)
ME3 is the best of them in respect of gameplay, I can tell you.
Make also sure to play the DLC; some of them are great (Citadel) and others actually should have been in the core game from the beginning (From Ashes, Leviathan).
+ToxicFaith Wait a sec... When you haven't played ME3 yet, What are you doing in this major spoiler vid? >:(
ooops sry I didn't read 'RE'playing. Just ignore me; I'm silly. :P
+Debott I've played it, just not since i beat it back at launch. That ending crushed me. As far as the dlc i bought leviathan when it came out but when i tried to play id go for like 30 min then id get a warning "lost contact with EA servers. deactivating dlc" so i never got to play it. or see the new endings.
+ToxicFaith but if all goes well i plan to pick it all up. i really wanna see this prothean for myself and ive heard nothing but great things about the citadel dlc.
aww... that sucks. Ea surely destroyed this game to some degree. I'm sorry for you. The problem is, you can't play it offline even today as far as I know. :/
What if the flotilla was the first contact to humanity in mass effect
been watching these lore videos for awhile now and only just subbed sorry about that i honestly thought you would of had a huge number more subs than you do
Nah I'm still fairly new. I'm glad you're enjoying the content!
you have a new subscriber
Where did you get the footage for this video? There is tonnes that i dont recognise
+Pendleton 115 This video has footage from all over, but a good chunk is from the Leviathan DLC for Mass Effect 3.
Minius GC Ah, ok... I litterally just finished Mass Effect 3 earlier today... I'm happy to know that there's a couple DLCs to soften the blow that I'll never see another Mass Effect game with Commander Shepard in it :)
+Pendleton 115 Be sure to play the Citadel DLC. And if you can, play it last.
Minius GC Ok, Ill make sure to play them :D By the way, I really enjoy these videos :P
Wouldn't several new reapers be made from each cycle? In the cycle that the trilogy takes place in, there are more than 10 races. It's logical to assume that every cycle would have several races as well
+sea strider Someone at some point in the series said they only make one per cycle. But if the reapers are 'preserving life' as they claim then they should make one for every race.
Minius GC Really? I haven't seen that. Plus, it doesn't actually make sense. Not only are they failing their "preserve life" goal, but making a reaper out of every race means much greater numbers, which makes them even more powerful. Can you provide a link to where it's said?
+sea strider I'd have to really dig for a link, but it's actually the Leviathan who says 'each harvest ends with the birth of a reaper.' I took it to mean one per cycle, but I'm not sure that's true.
The reaper boy child says something about how they're preserving life, but clearly doesn't understand what life is.
Minius GC WelI think it knows the distinction between species. If it didn't, it probably would've thought one reaper was enough since it now had "life"
+sea strider Well, technically they are preserving organic life. They do not destroy organic life, they destroy the organic life that represents a threat to organic life (as a whole). By destroying just the civilizations that reached a certain level of technological development (and any artificial life form that may already exist) they prevent the creation of AIs that would destroy all organic life.
And we should observe that, according to the star child, this is not the final solution. With the cycles they turned the galaxy into an experiment. They were still trying to find the final/best solution for the problem.
Also, I’m not completely sure, but I think it is said that the new reaper is made to preserve the cycle it came from. So the new reaper probably contains all the historical, technological and/or biological knowledge of that cycle (not just from one species, but from all).
"The enormous trash-talking machines". I loled.
How do the Reaper repoduce???
+John von Shepard By killing everyone. Seriously, I think that is the answer.
so the reapers are 1 billion years old and if they have a cycle every 50 000 years their are at least 20 00 cycles. damn
+kane bekkattla I think it's safe to say that some of the earlier cycles took much longer than 50,000 years. But yea - still a lot of cycles.
just subscribed
I never fineshed andromida so I just started it agan and its a good game after all the updates and fixes why better than 76 lol
You know I love the origins of the reapers but I think catalysts and harbinger could have been better characters and against each other you see catalyst would be like Jesus harbinger would be like Lucifer because catalyst just once the Galaxy to unite for the greater good and harbinger just wants to conquer it for his own self purposes and then harbinger betrays his father locks him up somewhere in the Galaxy where he can never be freed and watches in horror as his son runs the Galaxy for himself that would have been much more better if you asked me and then the catalyst is trying to help Shepherd stop harbinger once and for all.
The fact they made the literal exact mistake the lesser beings were making is ridiculous 🙄
REVERSE REAPERS LAVAETHON EVERYTHING
I checked on my calculator and added a few more million years with how many reapers are created the numbers for the reaper swarm was almost a hundred thousand.😰
+Eric Valencia Yea it's a lot. It's possible that a good number of those reapers were destroyed in conflicts, but still a whole lot.
There are at most 20,000 Reapers.
the reapers weapons are energy based while all the other races seens to still be using kinectic weapons luke gauss canons wgich is electromagnetic.
....
so theoretically a race coyld choose to destroy their master relay with in their system, design ftl engines of their own n nrg based weapons that could stand up to the refers.
Baby NOOB i always thought that the weapons were NFTL kinetic weapons.
Wasn't it 37.5 million yrs, instead of a billion yrs?
+GMALEON I think it might have been at some point, though I don't think that number was ever confirmed. The Leviathan DLC gives a pretty firm one billion year number however.
Fair enough. However, I could've sworn I heard 37.5 million yrs (or something close) instead of a billion. I've played all three games, and passed them, over ten times. And never heard a billion. I just wanna be sure I didn't miss one of the most important facts in the Mass Effect storyline. Could you point me towards the specific part of the Levianthan DLC were it states its a billion? Thanks!
+GMALEON It's easy to miss because it isn't in any of the dialogue. I think the only mention of that one billion year age is in the planet description for Jartar in the Dis system of the Hades Gamma cluster in Mass Effect 3.
I'm pretty sure EDI says 37 million out-load in Mass Effect 2. I doubt one billion was the original mark.
OK. I guess the confusion was ultimately created by the production staff at Bioware. Such a key piece of data, that pretty much the foundation of the whole story line. Hopefully they won't make this mistakes in Andromeda!
Whoa, if the Reapers killed every advanced life on earth every 50,000 years they already did that 20,000 times, no wonder they act so cocky and superior, it´s more than routine for them. All of them failed and could only add to the Crucible, because no one had a Shepard.
REVERSE LEVE TAX EVERYBODY EVERYTHING
REVERSE ALL MY MONEY BACK TO ME NOW
minius ,quick question:ps4 or pc?
+Hazver The answer here is both. Though I only recently got a PC that can run things. I've got a long time crew I run with on PS, but for ME:A I'll probably be on all 3 platforms.
thanks for answering
There is a bit of misinformation
have my sub!
+systemfan91 Wooo!
REVERSE PATAIRIAN
Thinking about it...If the reapers come every 50.000 years, how can any lifeform become advanced enough to be harvested.
They leave fully sapient but not technologically advanced civilizations alone. When the protheans got wiped out humans had language and stuff.
Minius GC Seems like that, but the last prothean even said that he remembers the salarians where they still ate flies. That is a bit far from being in a civilisation. They are not human, but on the same level.
Well, they are amphibian :)
50,000 years is a short time if you start from the planet formation that leads to their life evolving. It actually took the human race less than that to become civilized, but almost 4 billion years to come into being according to evolutionary theory. But if you think about where humans were 10,000 years ago, 20,000, and so on, it begins to add up. 50,000 years to me sounds like a convenience for narration purposes, not an attempt to create a hyper realistic scenario in a sci-fi tale.
Also the Mass Relays and the Citadel represents the perfected Reaper harvest cycle. That is to say, because the Catalyst did not implement this right away as soon as the Reapers first were born, there were a lot of cycles that took place without the Citadel or the Mass Relays. So I don't see any reason from the Mass Effect Lore to ascertain that every cycle was actually 50,000 years. It was only perfected and repeated every 50,000 years due to the Catalyst trying to prevent the mass extinction of all organic life in the universe more effectively and with less risk.
Ah yes "Reapers"
We have dismissed that claim
I'd love to see a war between the Dominion (Star Trek) and the Reapers.
that'd be 1 sided. now the galatic republic/empire of star wars vs tyre reapers would be something.
Lol Dominion technology is far better.
Emperor Franz Joseph I The Dominion were a Level 3 civ. The Reapers (and the Council for that matter though only just) was a Level 4 civ. The dominion would have been utterly crushed, their only saving grace not being a reliance on Mass Relays which was still a handicap as it's take 70 years to cross the galaxy. Now The Galactic Republic/Empire on the other hand is an advanced Level 4 civ that can cross the galaxy as fast as the Reapers WITHOUT the Mass Relays, had tech that could blow a planet to smithereens and had the fucking Force which makes biotics look like a sideshow. The Death Star could have ended the Reapers singlehandedly.
Both Dominion weapons and shields are vastly better not to mention endless manpower and teleportation technology. Also the Reapers are definitely not Type IV nor is the Empire. All three are type II
Emperor Franz Joseph I A type 2 civ is solar, Firefly and BSG (either version) are good examples. ST is interstellar, Type 3. Star Wars and ME are Galactic, Type 4.
And how do you figure the Dominion have unlimited manpower (cloning isn't unlimited, requiring resources, facilities and time) and teleportation (teleporting from DS9 to the GQ relied on a wormhole)? Weapons and shields? The Reapers (hell, even the Turians) would cut right thru those shields and wouldn't even notice Dominion weapons.
If you really want the Reapers to get a smackdown, pit them against the Commonwealth from Andromeda. Mass Relays (though they used different terminology) so small they could be put on individual fighters, non-genocidal AI that would make Harbinger look like a country bumpkin in a conversation, bombs with a supernova's power, capital ships that could fly like fighters, battle droids 4 stories tall and an empire spanning not 1 but 3 galaxies. The Reapers' 1st wave would have jumped in on the Citadel, got swatted down like flies than the Commonwealth would have jumped into dark space and wiped out all the Reapers hiding out there. lol
REVERSE LAVAETHON
The first encounter with a reaper was just awesome. Sovereign was just a giant machine that told you that you are not capable to understand why it is here nor what it does. That was just mind blowing at the time.
The second one Harbinger was kinda small compared to what its mission was. From now on the story was getting "lame".
Since now you got only to take care of the Collectors. The what? Some other Husk species the reapers left behind to do what exactly? Weak storytelling was the answer. Since the original story was abandoned from now on. There was still that humanoid reaper at the end of ME2. Good old times.
With ME3 the story just went down... ...become just another "ohh we got a weird AI go amok"-story.
Leviathan? One of the weakest parts of the story.
Mac Walters really ruined what could have been a Sci-fi milestone.
Good thing he´s gone now. That departure from Bioware was really just that, a good thing.
Here´s hope he didn´t wreck the Andromeda story line. ;)
I feel the same. Except I like the collectors as like a filler until Mass Effect 3 f*cked it up.
iM3GTR i liked ME2, too. But it felt strange when i first played it. I really loved the loyalty missions but they were given to you just like that. The story evolving around the Collectors was a bit weak.
And i didn´t like the skill tree. ME1 gameplay was broken, ok. But i really like to skill Shepard.
In ME2 the talents/powers were not as important as the upgrades you could research in Mordin´s lab. I don´t like that approach.
ME3 got it back on track while its gameplay is really awesome.
With those cryo/fire explosions, techbursts or biotic combo detonations. Just really cool shit. Love it.
reaper leviathan :)
So if there was one Reaper created every 50,000 years for 1,000,000,000 that means there was about 20,000 Reapers.
+Sloth Donger The 50k cycles are a more recent development, I don’t really remember if it is mentioned since when, but it is not something that is happening since the first one.
+Sloth Donger It's safe to assume that the early cycles took longer. The leviathan pretty much says so. But there are still a ton of reapers out there. The true number of reapers probably isn't that far off your calculated guess.
+Sloth Donger
"Our numbers will darken the sky of every world."
- Sovereign talking rubbish 2183CE
+Skalarwellen Technik He didn't say they'd completely darken them, or that they'd darken them all at once. Reapers filling the skyline on Earth, for example, still fits Sovereign's words. Reapers run on intimidation since ME1. We still destroyed one in ME1.
+Sloth Donger Its a good estimate to think there are thousands to tens of thousands of Reapers, and they just find better and better ways to intimidate organics and lessen any perception that they don't literally overwhelm the galaxy. Taking the Citadel early would have cut off a ton of transportation and communication, but in this cycle, we notice that they often are split between just a few major conflict points and only send 'Destroyers' to other ones.
1.000.000.000 / 50.000 = 20.000 :)
The one problem I have with the LEVIATHAN is how they are a AQUATIC RACE.Being a AQUATIC RACE puts some severe limitations on what that race can do.Sure it's Sci Fi and this can be solved with a DEUS EX MACHINA OR MCGUFFIN but it always made me look at the LEVIATHAN as not advanced or a supreme species.Sure they can influence other races to do they're bidding but their SIZE AND AQUATIC NATURE keeps them for the most part immobile. As for the REAPERS I also didn't like they're design either ,it just made no sense to me if they are eternal and the superior sentient beings why would they not change their physiology.
I KNOW BIO WARE WAS GOING FOR THE H.P LOVECRAFT STYLE OF COSMIC BEING THAT'S ABOVE ANY COMPREHENSION TO HUMANS BUT THE REAPER DESIGN JUST DOESN'T CAPTURE THE LOVECRAFT AESTHETIC (SEE CTHULU or any FROM SOFTWARE BOSS LIKE THE AMYGDALA FROM BLOODBORN)
I believe the idea is that their home planet had a land-based thrall race which allowed them to develop technology over time (through the thralls). It's never outright said but it is implied.
Minius GC that makes sense .Maybe the reason why their design always bothered me was because people compared them to a LOVECRAFT design. I just don't see that ,the LEVIATHAN/REAPERS overall existence and back round is very LOVECRAFT (cosmic beings beyond human comprehension )but their design is just a SQUID/CUDDLEFISH.That design alone always made me feel like their is nothing special or superior about them .Along with the AQUATIC nature of them .Having marine and aquatic species that need to live in water to survive always bothers me .I know its Sci Fi or Fantasy but the limitations of being aquatic only always pulls me out of the stories immersion .
Now if they made the LEVIATHAN/REAPERS look like CTHULU or the AMYGDALA from BLOODBORN I would totally buy into then as a APEX SUPERIOR RACE ABOVE HUMAN COMPREHENSION.
The ANDROMEDA ANTAGONIST look great though being bi pedal human like.
KEEP UP THE GOOD VIDEOS .YOUR VIDEOS ACTUALLY ARE THE REASON I WENT BACK AND GAVE MASS EFFECT ANOTHER TRY . THE COMBAT IN MASS EFFECT ESPECIALLY THE FIRST ONE WAS JUST TO CLUNKY FOR MY TASTE BUT AFTER WATCHING SOME OF YOUR LORE VIDEOS THE MASS EFFECT UNIVERSE BECAME SO INTERESTING TO ME THOSE CLUNKY COMBAT CONTROLS DIDN'T MATTER .SO THANKS
make a vid completely reguarding speculation in the comments
ME 2 and 3 sort of ruined the Reaper lore. They should've kept their origins hidden and their motivations "incomprehensible for organic minds" or at least used smarter writers. EA milked the lore at the expense of the suspense/sense of mystery ME 1 worked hard to create. In general I feel like ME 1 was way more adult than its sequels, which could be attributed to EA changing most of the writers.
Look at pre-EA writing compared with writing like in DA 2.
I feel the same. " What could the Reapers possibly be? What could they want??...........Oh they are just really big geth, Ok then."
Tobias I agree. They were so much better when we didn't know their origins or their motivations.
Sigh.
Eh, I'd have accepted it (Sovereign saying 'we have no beginning/end') if it was willed, for example by the creator of Sovereign. But to be honest, I was very disappointed by Harbinger, ghostkid, and especially by the leviathans who basically spoon-fed you the not so interesting background of the reapers.
Game started losing its mysterious nature with ME2, and it was utterly destroyed by ME3.
Also, I wanted an all-out war, same as the protheans, not a magical solution in three colours.
Why did BioWare leave Microsoft and join EA?
Explaining the Reapers was one of the stupidest and lamest idea Bioware could have. Combined with the clusterfuck that is ME 3 the weakest of all ME games in terms of story and its use of deus ex machina really raped the story and lore of ME in general. I mean the new game is based in another galaxy essentially because the writers fucked up so much with ME 3 they pretty much said fuck it. "We wrote ourselves into a whole of creative freedom and its garbage. So lets go to another galaxy far far away."