Reaper Motivation

So, I was thinking about this earlier because I was mauling over the ME3 ending again (because I'm going to be stuck on this until the EC comes out and either eases the frustration or increases it to the point where I'll just give up and play something else) and thinking about the reasoning that the child gives you for why the Reapers destroy all organic live. Obviously by now the general consensus is that it makes no sense because it uses circular logic and directly ignores plot points established in previous games. So, I thought I'd pose the question, what did you guys think their motivation was prior to the logic given to you in the game? Or supposing the child is lying (for those who do support the IT) what do you think the truth is?

I always thought that it was just self preservation and that their whole purpose for existence was just existence itself. That would explain why they made the Mass Relays and Citadel as a kind of trap for the more advanced civilizations so that they could wipe out and harvest any species that might pose them a threat eventually and it would also explain why they leave younger species alone, because killing all organic life would mean that they wouldn't be able to continue to reproduce and sustain, since they basically make new Reapers out of the Harvested species.

So what do you think? Evil for the sake of evil? Beings that represent order and hate chaos? The child's crazy logic is right? Or do you think it would actually be better not to know because the Reapers are more threatening if you don't know why they do what they do?

Certainly the "mainstream response" will be that we don't need to know their motivations. "Originalists" may further argue that this whole mess is actually the result of ME2's plotline. Personally, I'm going to put on my "super-hipster" hat and argue that from the beginning the Reapers were a serious problem from the point of telling a complete story. They picked big baddies who were WAY too big. Then they started adding crazy stuff to the codex to try to reign in their baddies (Thanix cannons, that silly "4-1 ratio" codex entry, etc.). But at the end of the day, they were left with two options: bring in a deus ex machina to resolve the issue, or continue their wretched pattern of inconsistency and pretend a conventional war suddenly would work.

They obviously chose the second one. But then, possibly to try to justify their deus ex machina, they LITERALLY brought a god out of the machine to somehow in less than a few minutes explain Reapers justifications from the get-go (in all its flawed glory). I don't think it matters, and I literally couldn't care one way or another. If they give a justification, it would always be unable to be trusted and from a storytelling perspective is bound to be silly. If they don't, they simply remain hilariously overpowered apocalypse-bringers that Bioware waves their hand to deal with.

Frankly from the get go I expected for it to end with the Reapers winning and then maybe a sort of nod in the direction of Liara's time capsules to bring 'hope' for the following cycle. Would have been depressing as hell but after I saw the actual ending I kind of would have preferred a depressing ending to one that brings in a supernatural element in the last ten minutes with space magic and your crewmates being zapped to an oasis.

I think that little shit is lying through his teeth. There's just too much evidence that points to indoctrination for me personally. I think for the first time the reapers experience fear. They have never come across a galaxy that has been united completely under one banner and has taken up arms against them in one final push, so instead of going directly into battle, they figure if they can indoctrinate one of humanity's key figures (shepard) and get him to give up then the effect of Shepard saying screw this would completely break morale for everyone and everyone would die.

I kinda liked the motivation that was hinted in ME2. They think themselves the pinnacle of evolution, and in their good will, they choose a race every 50k years to ascend to their level of perfection, and crush all others. Its still crazy, its still evil, and since their "perfection" is unknowable by mere mortals, their motivation and intent keeps a little bit of mistery. Couple that with the revelation that they are partly organic, and you somehow understand their intent of reproduction.

my own theory about what the reapers truly are and want would be something like this:

they were once an organic race that strived towards cultural and physical perfection, over the years they've use more and more cybernetic implants and parts to achieve this goal, eventually they reached a similar conclusion to the geth...upload all their minds and knowledge into a giant vessel made from their own liquified bodies in order to achieve this physical and mental perfection creating the first reaper, since they can't reach perfection since a perfect being is almost an impossibility but that wouldn't stop it from trying, however it's own body and mind wasn't enough to reach perfection, they made the decision to create reapers from other races in order to share information between their minds and organic material between their bodies, again modifying and streamlining them over the years until no more body modifications and new information exchanges were possible marking the need for a new harvest, and the cycle goes on with the reapers inching ever towards their own idea of perfection but never quite reaching their goal.

The problem IMO was that there was no way to deal with the reapers in a realistic way, i remember way before ME3 was officially announced, on the BSN network, people where making threads about how the Reapers where not possible to defeat, and they did not want a Virus(AKA Independence day) or a Deux Ex, or Military fleats defeating Reapers, this or that ect ect... realistically at that point i knew there was no possible way to make people happy.
I remember i suggested that there be an ending where Reapers win, one with Shepard Indoctrinated, i also wanted one where if you imported a ME2 save where everyone died, reapers win by default with a cut-scene at the start if you imported.

What im trying to say is that conventional endings where already out the getting people pissed way before ME3 was announced officially lol, many factors ended up souring the game imo.

Reminds me of the Terminator Paradox

But who the hell trusts a synthetic AI with finding a solution to preserve organic life against synthetic life? Or ok, i can live with it, but its like a faulty software that was never tried in a simulation or a test run. I cant really see a whole organic galactic society seeing this so called solution in theory and everybody saying "Sure, this looks like fun, lets do it!"

What, were there any time constraints? It just shows, releasing any software without testing may lead to disaster.

That is a good point. There wouldn't have been an ending that made everyone happy...but they probably should have avoided the ending that pissed everyone off. The giant super weapon that no one understands and is never properly explained counts as a desperate plot device, but it could have done something other then create color coded devices that offer sudden magical solutions.

First off, on a meta level, I never believed the Reapers were unbeatable. I wouldn't really fault the storytellers for any method they chose to have the Reapers be defeated (including Deus Ex Machina) provided it was believable enough. Of course they would say outright that there's no way to beat the Reapers, because that builds up the tension. All along, though, they were giving us clues that it was totally possible to beat them.

That said, I don't believe whatsoever that the Reapers' motivation was what the Catalyst said it was. I believe they are deluded, neurotic, obsessed with "order" to the point that nothing else matters. I also believe one of their chief goals is self-preservation and expansion of their pool of knowledge and genetic material. I cannot in any way see the Reapers as being altruistic, even the twisted genocidal "altruism" the Catalyst claims to have.

I'm probably somewhere between your position and the "originalist" one. I can see that the Reapers are sold from their inception as basically, a force of nature - beyond our very understanding, immensely powerful, intelligent, patient and dangerous. It's a bit like how under RTD, they had to KEEP escalating the threat for the season finale of Dr. Who and the way in which he'd beat them would becoming increasingly trite and unsatisfying as a consequence because it was never really a hard fought battle, it was like Star Trek: TNG where they build up to the last five minutes when Picard says "Data, sort this shit out!"

If there was going to be a victory without the Reaper off-switch (another promise Bioware broke, hoorah!) you really needed Mass Effect 2 to be about Shepard getting the whole galaxy on side, looking for ancient tech to fight Reapers, getting scientists, ships and militaries ready for a battle they'd only have a CHANCE of winning.

Hell, you could have combined elements of The Arrival and Suicide Mission for an awesome finale where instead of going "Uh, I guess we... KIND of did something." You go "DAMN! The Reapers are almost here and I just sacrificed an entire solar system JUST to slow them down!" I think that you should probably have had the detonation go off as the Reapers were dropping out of FTL so that you'd at least have thinned their numbers a bit, giving you a fighting chance.

And then, that allows ME3 to be ALL about fighting the Reapers and not running around at the last second when we're already going to hell in a handbasket.

But back to motivations - I think usually when you go for an utterly alien race, it's hard to really understand their psychology. Hell, it can be hard for us to understand different cultures on Earth. So, for a race that is utterly alien, totally beyond us and ancient beyond our ability to truly comprehend - I don't think they should really try and explain. They do their thin and we may never truly understand why - it's better than the circular reasoning of Casper.

I think a lot of people imagined a weapon that pierced reapers like the derelict reaper had a huge gaping hole. Or the one that made the scar on that planet.

Yeah, that didnt work remember? The cycles continued.
Though i would have loved a geniusly put together plotline that helps us win this conventiaonally, i could totally fly with the crucible idea, though a little foreshadowing might have been nice. At some point i totally thought that the crucible will utilise whatever is up with Dark Energy, making it work just becouse it is the right time in the galaxy, so that the 3 years of slowing down the invasion turns out to be totally worth it.

Agreed, but i meant that our cycle was supposed to improve upon the weapon, as was implied in game. I also remember the dev's saying before launch that in game we would spend a part of the game searching for a red hearing, or goose chase only to find out that it was not a way to finish off the Reapers, then another till we found a way that worked, seems like that was also cut.

I mean if you take the "Endings" as face value, then its not a red hearing. Only way for it not to be would be if any sort of Indoctrination has taken place.