Reapers (Mass Effect)

Reapers attack Earth.

The Reapers are an old and powerful race that feature in the game Mass Effect.

History

Origin

In Darkspace.

The Reapers were an ancient race of machine intelligences that were constructed billions of years ago in the Milky Way Galaxy. Their origins were actually traced to an even older species known as the Leviathans. The Leviathans had the races under their thrall and were the dominant species of their era. Through their natural power, they were able to enslave other species to their will but many of their subject races died following the development of artificial intelligences. In an effort to find a solution, the Leviathans constructed their own 'Intelligence' tasked with finding a solution to the problem of organics and synthetics destroying one another. During its study, the Intelligence turned on its makers and slaughtered many of their number who were converted into the first Reaper known as Harbinger. Thus, a cycle of destruction was created as the Intelligence believed that nothing could stop eventual warfare between organics and synthetics. As a result, the only option was to purge organics and upload their conquered minds into new Reapers. In time, this machine race became mythical beings and were attributed the name Reaper by those races that suffered from their harvests. At some point in the distant past, they embarked on a project that would create a self repetitive cycle through which they could function across the millennia. This began with the creation of the Mass Relay; an FTL system put into place throughout space whereupon the Reapers departed into dark space, the extragalactic void just outside the galaxy where the machines slumbered until life began to flourish in the galaxy. In addition, at the centre of their Mass Relay web was the Citadel. In time, these newly developed organic lifeforms entered into space where they simply found the Mass Relays and used them to spread throughout the galaxy and settled at the Citadel. Unknown to them, this was all done so according to the designs of the Reapers who made sure that the newly born intelligent species went into a pattern of dependence on the Mass Relay technology. Once they reached a suitable stage of development, one of the Reapers would give the activation signal and call forth their kin who would harvest the biological lifeforms and destroy them leaving the galaxy empty of life once more. After removing their handiwork, the Reapers would depart once more into their hibernative state and leave no evidence of prior civilizations thus allowing the cycle to repeat for countless generations of species.

At some point around 37 million years ago, one Reaper was killed or severely damaged leaving its body as a husk that remained above the dying star Mnemosyne. Despite being inactive, its system remained functional and it generated a mass effect field that kept it from falling into the star. The cause of this incapacity on the Reaper was unknown though it remained in this state for millions of years. The last time the Reapers were active was during the age of the Protheans which was over 50,000 years ago. This civilization followed a similar pattern as its predecessors in that they entered into space and formed a great empire with remarkable technology with their system of governance being based at the Citadel and their method of space travel being dependent on the Mass Relays. This remained in effect until the activation signal was given and the Reapers emerged. Just as they had done so previously, they disabled the Mass Relay network thus severing the Protheans from contacting one another and used their indoctrination as well as their superior abilities to kill as well as harvest organic life throughout the Milky Way galaxy. Not knowing who their foe, it was the Protheans who came the alien machines the term Reapers and though their civilization was extinguished; records of the name would remain in future years. After the completion of their task, the Reapers took a number of surviving Protheans and genetically manipulated them into a servitor species which they called the Collectors. Stationed at the galactic core with the only way in being the Omega 4 relay, these servants of the Reapers remained safe from discovery and would continue their masters purpose. Similar to their previous patterns, the Reapers departed from known space and left for the void outside the galaxy and left behind Sovereign to watch over the development of life once more.

Vanguard of Destruction

Over the course of thousands of years, Sovereign awaited and listened to the radio transmissions of the organic races. When the time came to harvest the galaxy, the Reaper sent the signal but the Citadel's Keepers did not respond. It was only later discovered that this was because a last endeavor from the Protheans saw a number of their scientists gain access to the station following the harvest of their race. These Prothean's managed to tamper with the Keeper's in order to prevent them from responding to any signals from activating the Citadel and thus they became harmless as they only tended to its maintenance. As such, Sovereign had to rely on other means in order to initiate the next cycle of extinction. In time, the Reapers were regarded as a myth that was common among several cultures in the galaxy in the new cycle with them being imagined as space monsters that consumed entire stars. Archaeologists searched for the sources of these myths but found little besides the themes of all-consuming devils that were common among primitive cultures. Across the millennia, the Reaper contacted many species in order to seek allies for the next cycle's harvest. Through these, the Reaper learnt of the Geth and their war against their creators namely the Quarians. Thus, Sovereign approached the Geth who referred to the Reapers as the Old Machines and addressed the entity as Nazara after it signaled them. It was the emergence of the Reapers that led to a schism amongst the ranks of the Geth. The core faction believed in forging their own future whilst the splinter group which were labelled as heretics believed that the Old Machines would provide them their future. The heretics became important tools for Sovereign and his agent, the Turian known as Saren Arterius. However, despite the belief of these rogue Geth, the Reapers were a threat to all species and were believed to ultimately annihilate the Geth once they served their goal. Sovereign's goal that was tasked to Saren was to find the Conduit that was the Prothean portal to the Citadel that had been built by the Protheans. The plan was to find a way onto the Citadel in order to forcibly activate the massive Mass Relay in order to bring the Reapers for the harvest as the normal system implanted onto the station's Keepers was no longer functional.

After revealing its existence to Saren Arteris, Sovereign controlled the Turian through Indoctrination where he came to believe he had no choice but to serve the Reapers as he could spare lives in the coming harvest. Despite being controlled, Sovereign allowed Saren to retain enough free will to remain effective rather than be completely dominated. During this time, the Geth served as his enforcers to achieve the Old Machines goals and they even managed to control the mind of the Asari Matriarch Benezia. To accomplish their goals, they required the use of a Prothean Beacon and learnt of one being uncovered on the planet Eden Prime that Saren accessed though he was opposed by a Systems Alliance officer named Commander Sheppard. Following that moment, Saren's duplicity was revealed to the Citadel Council with Sheppard appointed as a Spectre operative tasked with bringing him to justice. The rest of the galaxy simply believed that Arterius had gone rogue and operated from an alien warship and completely unaware that the vessel was in fact a Reaper. A race across the galaxy occurred where Saren began finding the coordinates to the Prothean installation at Illos where he used the Conduit to travel to the Citadel. At that moment, a Geth heretic fleet helped support Sovereign's attack on the Citadel whose defenses were shut down by Saren allowing for access to the station. However, Sheppard succeeded in killing Arterius leading to Sovereign taking direct control over his body but this to was destroyed and the shock of the attack led to the Reaper's destruction by the Citadel and Alliance fleet.

Collector Crisis

Despite Sovereign's attack, the existence of the Reapers was largely dismissed by the Citadel Council and other civilizations with it being claimed that the entity was simply a Geth vessel. Unknown to anyone, the Reapers had become aware of the destruction of one of their kind. Harbinger commanded the Reapers as they slept in dark space where he enacted his plans to begin their arrival for the harvest. To achieve that end, he took command of the Collector General and made use of these servants to enact his plans. Several weeks later, the Collector ship was responsible for the destruction of the Normandy along with the seeming death of Commander Sheppard. In the following two years, the Collectors were dispatched to attack human frontier colonies where their populations were placed in stasis and abducted. These captives were then taken to the Collector Base where they were harvested of captives and used the liquid biological matter to fashion a Proto-Reaper. This creature resembled that of the donor species with it appearing as a gigantic robotic humanoid. The activities of the Collectors attracted the attention of Cerberus who managed to recover the remains of Commander Sheppard and revive him. They then supported him to investigate the Collector threat and eventually stop it. This chain of events resulted in the new Normandy attacking the Collector Base and destroying the Proto-Reaper. Harbinger abandoned the Collector General who perished in the destruction with many of the Collectors being killed in the process. Despite that being the case, the Reapers had become active in dark space and made their way to the Milky Way Galaxy in order to begin their harvest of organic civilizations.

Arrival

This saw the Reapers stage a direct attack against Earth itself where they began ravaging the surface whilst the rest of their kind began similar attacks across the galaxy. At this time, Commander Sheppard managed to escape the attack where he was sent to rally the other races in order to bring about a more effective resistance against the Reapers.

Heavily damaged, the Reaper Destroyer came briefly back online in order to speak to Sheppard. It stated that Harbinger spoke of him and the Destroyer stated that the harvest was a necessity to bring order to the chaos of organic civilizations with the Reapers being their salvation from destruction.

In Mass Effect 3, the fate of the Reapers were left in the hands of the players with three options presented to them; a) Control whereby Sheppard took over as the guiding intelligence of the Reapers where he took them away into exile b) Destroy whereby all artificial intelligences including the Reapers were destroyed or c) Synthesis whereby a merger occurs between all organics and synthetics.

Overview

In appearance, the physical design of the Reapers resembled that of a cuttlefish or squid. Their form was bulky with a semi-cylindrical body that had a tapering plate over the rear along with five tentacles in the front that could operate as legs or arms. A further six jointed legs extended from its body and the rear of the larger legs had crescent shaped extensions. This form was based on that of Harbinger who was the first of their kind and he in turn was based on the Leviathans that created the Intelligence. A Reaper were capable of operating in space under their own power where they could use their thrusters to maneuver or enter FTL speeds. They were equally capable of landing on a planetary surface where they used their large tentacle as legs to either stand stationary or move across a world's environment. Each harvest led to the birth of a new Reaper that joined their ranks. Due to being mechanical entities, they were effectively immortal and did not suffer from the ravages of time with them able to exist for billions of years. The nature of their construction meant that a Reaper was in essence a billion organic minds that had been uploaded and conjoined into immortal machine bodies. As such, whilst they might appear as a single vessel, they were actually a singular will with many minds. According to a Reaper, each of their kind was a nation that was independent and free of all weakness.

Typical examples of such specimens measure up to two kilometers in length thus making them larger than capital ships in the galaxy. They were shown to possess formidable shielding and firepower allowing them to hold off entire combined fleets from the younger races with the mass effect fields of the Reaper being powerful enough to let them land on a planetary surface. Most examples of the race appeared to be large space flying squid-shaped vessels with powerful capabilities allowing them to destroy enemy vessels. A more disturbing aspect of the Reapers was their capacity to create larval forms of their species. This required the capture of tens of thousands of organic specimens who were liquified into organic matter which combined with inorganic components formed a superstructure that was a body of a Reaper. These forms apparently took the shape of the races that were being used to create it as was the case of the larval Human-Reaper at the Collector base. This led to the Reapers body giving both organic and inorganic signatures on sensors.

As space dwelling entities, a Reaper possessed thrusters and FTL drives that propelled them at more than twice the speed of the younger races with it estimated that they could travel 30 light years in a 24 hour period. The power sources of these beings seemingly violated physical laws and did not appear to discharge static build-up from their drive cores. Though they sometimes appeared wreathed in static discharge during landings on planets. Reapers were armed with their own weapons with the main guns on a capital ship dwarfing that of human dreadnoughts with no vessel surviving a direct hit from this weapon. It was estimated that the destructive power of the main gun was anywhere from 132 to 454 kilotons of TNT. Even surface-based shielded targets could become buried beneath molten metal from a blast of the Reapers main gun. Precise targeting computers and correctors also provided a Reaper with a longer effective range than those of organic dreadnoughts of cruisers. In terms of defense, they possessed kinetic barriers with those on capital ships being able to survive the firepower of a small fleet of younger race vessels. Only weapons that were specifically designed to overcome shields could bypass the barriers of a Reaper to some degree. However, the difficulty was surviving close enough to use them as the surface-mounted weaponry on Reaper ships were effective defence against organic species fighters.

Reapers were classified by the Citadel races into various types that included:

• Capital Ships : these two kilometer were Sovereign-class Reapers that targeted dreadnoughts, defense installations and the industrial cities of organic civilizations. According to experts, the harvest of a single entire species gave birth to this class of Reaper. A number of them were able to deploy small drone craft that operated as fighters.
• Destroyers : a much smaller class that were only 160 meters long but operated in large numbers that made the bulk of the Reaper fleets. These specimens engaged cruisers and smaller ships whilst targeting the communication posts along with command centers of organics. Research indicated that those races not harvested to form a Capital Ship were instead used to create Destroyers.
• Troop Transports : though part of the Reaper fleet, these 200 meter to kilometer long vessels did not appear to be self-aware and instead operated remotely where the were used to deploy husks to planets whilst bringing victims to the processing centers to be harvested.
• Processors : these 'slaughter ships' operated as mobile mass DNA harvesting centers that, similar to the transports, were operated remotely by sapient Reapers.

In time, the process was further refined and gave rise to the effect known as Indoctrination. This was actually a nearly undetectable signal that influenced the thought patterns of organic races. This corrupting influence on organic minds 'reprogrammed' the brains through physical and psychological conditioning by a variety of means including electromagnetic fields, infrasonic and ultrasonic noise, and other subliminal methods. Ultimately, the Reapers gain control over the limbic system leaving the victim in a high susceptible state towards suggestions. In time, organics became easily influenced by the process until eventually they became completely subservient to the will of the Reapers. Initially, organics that undergo indoctrination complain of headaches and buzzing or ringing in their ears, In time, they began to feel that they were being watched and begin to get hallucinations of ghostly presences. This eventually progressed to the Reaper using the victim's body to amplify its signal whereupon they began to manifest as alien voices in the mind. Indoctrination led to organic beings being completely devoted to the Reapers and seeking to achieve their goals as the expense of their own lives and wills. This allowed the Reapers to create perfect deep-cover agents as these organics fell to the Reapers 'suggestions' leading to them manipulating their victims to betray friends, trusting enemies or viewing the Reapers with superstitious awe. This made Indoctrination incredibly dangerous if a Reaper managed to subvert the mind of well placed political or military leaders as the resulting chaos could bring down nations. A consequence of the process meant that organic beings lacked the capacity of free will making them. Long-term physical effects of the manipulation were not sustainable as higher mental functioning decays turning the subject into little more than an animal. Rapid indoctrination was possible but caused decay in days or weeks whereas slower more patient indoctrination allowed a thrall to last for months or years.

During their attacks, Reapers often destroyed the fuel infrastructure of enemy vessels rather than attempt to capture them intact. This was an indication that they did not require the energy supplies of organic races. As a result, they attacked without regarding to maintaining a supply lines behind them with the only exception being moving husks from one world to another. The goal of the Reapers was the harvest of entire species in the galaxy. Despite their power, harvesting every sapient race in an entire galaxy took decades or even centuries. The most time-consuming part of this process was the gathering of DNA from the populations. To accelerate this effort, the Reapers followed a consistent process during their harvests. Any victims that either cooperated, surrendered or were captured by husks were sorted into camps. The husks were believed to possess receptors that allowed them to analyse a victim's DNA through sight, smell or touch. Those victims that met their standards were then herded from the camps into processor ships. Those deemed insufficient were either turned into husks or indoctrinated to serve as slave labor. Reapers used indoctrination as the last option in order to give their victims a sense of false hope as the presence of survivors that obeyed and survived made some become more docile rather than fight. The processor ships were responsible for reducing the victims into a transportable liquid state with this being described as being similar to a slaughterhouse with the ships design preventing victims from seeing or hearing what happened elsewhere so that they did not panic. Victims were ushered them into locking pods where they were rent apart and dissolved into paste that was flushed into storage vats. The rate of killing were phenomenal with it stated that over 400 processor ships over a world being capable of killing approximately 1.86 million beings per day. This in combination with battlefield deaths, disease, famine led to complete depopulation of a planet within a decade. This kill rate increased as the husks and indoctrinated slaves proceeded to build more slaughtering facilities.

They were only known as a myth to the existing races for they were in hibernation in darkspace - in the void between galaxies. It was speculated that the Reapers entered into extended periods of hibernation in order to survive across thousands of years and awakened periodically to scan events that took place around them. There they remain for 50,000 years whereupon they descend upon the races of the galaxy and harvest them all leaving nothing standing. Once this was complete, the Reapers once again return to their cycle of hibernation until the next moment they are awakened. They believed that organic life was an abomination that needed to be purged and stated that they saved biological species by destroying them. Their belief that organic life was chaotic nature meant that the Reapers believed that they imposed order over the chaos of the universe.

One Reaper stated that organic life was simply an accidental mutation and that their kind was the pinnacle of evolution. According to them, the cycle of harvests needed to continue as this was a fate that organic races could not comprehend. They saw themselves as representations of order and organic races representing chaos. The Reapers believed that every organic civilization needed to be harvested in order to bring order to the chaos with this being an inevitability. They concluded that without their intervention then organics were doomed an as a result the Reapers were their salvation. As such, the cycle needed to continue with their being no alternative.

Technology

Technologically, the Reapers were a hyper-advanced civilization that was superior to the organic species of the galaxy. This cybernetic race were technologically advanced and were capable genetically altering biologically races on a drastic level thus turning them into a divergent species. Such techniques were used to create the Collectors civilization. Furthermore, they bio-engineered the Keepers that operated on the Citadel station as well as implanted them with set directives namely to maintain the facility, activate the awakening signal when the time was right and finally to self destruct if any individual attempted to probe their origins. They also possessed the fearsome Dragon's Teeth; these mechanical devices extended into tall spikes that skewered biological beings on them from the chest. After sometime, the body of the deceased was transformed into a cybernetic undead construct called a Husk. By melding multiple husks together, the Reapers and their servants were able to create different types of constructs such as the inhuman and insect-like Praetorians.

A weapon created by them was named the Blackstar that was so advanced that the younger races could only speculate on how it operated. These guns seemingly exploited an element zero core and mass effect field to fire gravitational singularities. In essence, they fired micro black holes that reverted to their natural lethality when they impacted a solid object. Scientists theorised that the blast tore apart the strong nuclear forces that held a target's atoms together resulting in a localized fusion reaction in light atoms and a fission reaction in heavy atoms. As a result, it altered nuclei and changed the chemical composition of the target that destroyed organic tissue, corroded surviving armor and left a visible trail of light-emitting particles.

Another artifact of Reaper design was a machine designated as Object Rho by Alliance scientists that was found on the 157-Golgotha asteroid. This machine was rooted into the core of the asteroid and had a barrier that operated as a much more powerful biotic stasis field. As a result, it was highly resilient to any form of damage that attempted to remove a piece of it. Internally, the device was energetically active with a quantum state field similar to that found in a Mass Relay. Similar to the Relays, Object Rho responded to threats where it consumed a phenomenal amount of power with it being speculated that this energy was from dark matter. The true objective of the machine was to serve as a broadcast signal and sent information a wide variety of spectra. The pulses operated similar to a quantum entanglement communicator though the object also operated on infrasound on a frequency that triggered feelings of awe and fear notable for being the effects of Indoctrination.

In addition, they had advanced knowledge of FTL travel and were even able to construct powerful platforms for travelling interstellar distances by making the Mass Relays.

Members

• Sovereign : identified itself as Nazara though Saren called the Reaper Sovereign as he believed it to be a supreme being.
• Harbinger : the first of their kind that was created from harvested Leviathans and built in their form with subsequent Reapers created from him.

Notes

• The Reapers served as the primary antagonists in the original Mass Effect trilogy.
• In an interview with Drew Karpyshyn, he commented, "We had other influences in our game besides classic science fiction. We wanted to distinguish the Reapers from things like the Borg or other similar stuff. What we did was, we went to the elder gods of the Lovecraft mythology. That’s what we wanted to capture. These are the science fiction version of the elder gods."

Appearance

• Mass Effect:
• Mass Effect 2:
• Mass Effect 3:

External Link

• Mass Effect Wiki Entry
• Wikipedia Entry

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