It doesn't say this, it provides memories and sensations of things experienced. Javik won't even touch it because it re opens his memory of him killing his unit. You are imputting something that isn't there.
And such trinkets are common among the Protheans. They use such things to pass down memories. Not just that, but their beacons back in ME1 did the same.
Which explains why Javik has such a clear memory of the Metacon War. His people probably passed it down to him through one such device.
No, it wasn't. All we know is the protheans were an aggressive empire, forcibly incorporated other species to fight an AI, and spent 400 years being thrashed by the reapers just as they were winning. Javik never says AIs were illegal, or anything remotely of the sort.
Uh, no, he basically says that they waged war against the machines during the Metacon War. It basically means that they were waging war against AI life; and the fact that they lasted 400 years against the Reapers makes them even better than the cycle Shepard is from, where it seems that they won't even last one year without the Hail Mary play that was the Crucible.
The Protheans were performing the same cyclical beats the Reapers were created for in the first place dude. Ais rise up, organics fight them, risk of total destruction unless the reapers intervene.
False. The Protheans were uniting all organics against AIs. And had the Reapers not intervened, it would've worked.
The Dark Energy ending was completely inconsistent with the actual scale of the series. It was pretty much dropped with nary a hint by the end of Act 2 and only a few one off references in ME2. (It wasn't a good idea).
The Catalyst ending was even more inconsistent, especially since all indications showed that the Reapers don't have an ulterior motive outside of petty spite towards organics and some hints of reproduction. They don't give a shit if organics make AIs that rebel against them; they welcome such an occurrence and even support the AIs against their organic overlords, in both ME1 and ME3.
1. Before the cycles, the Leviathans were the first sapient race in the galaxy, and by far the most powerful. They received tribute from lesser races, and basically basked as god squids. These lesser races made Ais that wiped them out, denying the Leviathans tribute.
2. Miffed by their slaves self destructing, the Leviathans created the Intelligence(starchild) to understand why this was happening and find a permanent solution to the problem, part of its mandate being the "preservation of life at any cost".
3. Said Intelligence followed the letter of its programming and harvested the Leviathans, creating the first reapers
The letter of its programming was to save organics from synthetic rebellions. It instead opted to rebel against its masters and turned them into a synthetic war machine called Harbinger. Which means that the Catalyst is either broken or lying. All we get from the Leviathans' side of the story is that their AI became the very same thing it was meant to defend against.
4. Throughout the next billion years, the Intelligence created and moved around the mass relays, allowing interstellar civilization to develop, reach a certain level, and then be harvested, (with the likely criteria for harvest probably being something like "AI revolt or overtake imminent").
False. The Reapers don't care if AI rebellions are imminent; they only care if the DNA of the harvested species would make for a good Reaper; everyone else can get fucked and get blown out.
5. Most cycles followed a standard pattern of the keepers sending the signal, reapers take Citadel, harvest begins.
Which has nothing to do with imminent AI rebellions, just whether or not they can make Reapers out of some worthy organics while wiping out the rest.
6. Shepherd's cycle is unique, because Shepherd delayed the harvest multiple times AND successfully managed to construct the Crucible device.
And that prevents AI rebellions because......why, again? Depending on Shepard's choices, an AI rebellion has already broken out, and only a Paragon Shepard managed to talk things down. If anything, a Renegade Shepard who was unable to patch things up between the Geth and the Quarians would meet the criteria for a cycle that should be harvested because they have already created AIs that rebel against their owners. That doesn't make Shepard's cycle unique; it makes it typical.
7. This demonstrates to Star Child that the need for this billion year experiment is over, and a new set of solutions are open-one destruction, two control, three synthesis, and four just redoing it again.
Which doesn't prove anything. All it does is show that Mac Walters and Casey Hudson didn't even check the logic of their own series, especially since they threw out the original ending and didn't consult any of the other writers on it.
The Reapers are ultimately not the ultimate antagonists of the series, they are tools of a greater entity pursuing its own goals.
Wow. Every word of that sentence is a lie.
The Mass Effect series has built up the Reapers as the ultimate antagonists of the series. The first two games, as well as 99 percent of the third game, posited that the Reapers were the ultimate baddies, that they see organics as scum, that they want to wipe out all organics, and the only reason they'd treat humans specially is to make a Reaper out of them. All evil, malicious goals that have nothing to do with saving organics from their own synthetic creations, which is what the Leviathan programmed the Catalyst to do.
You are presuming the Reapers are interested in the stopgap solution of any one civilization, they are not. You are presuming the Reapers are acting out of malice, (they really are not). What they are doing is following a billion year old AI's programming.
The Reapers openly speak in malicious tones to Shepard and his/her crew. They don't give a shit about some AI's programming; they're just narcissistic dickwads who enjoy purging organics for shits and giggles, and the most we see from them getting something out of it is to increase their numbers.
Meanwhile, the Protheans successfully created a civilization that doesn't want AIs, that can live without AIs, and was wiping out AIs, so they were the answer that the Leviathans and the Catalyst would've wanted-but the Reapers wiped them out anyways and made them into the Collectors, because their real aim was purging organics and reproduction, not following the script of some broken AI.
The goal of Starchild is either fulfilled when Shepherd takes it place, synthesizes organic and synthetic life, or lets the process repeat-in Destroy and Refusal. The Starchild is not some final boss Shepherd has to overcome, and the reapers are ultimately not "bad guys".
The Reapers have their Geth acolytes put people on spikes in the first game. The Reapers slaughter organics with glee and gladly encourage rebellious AI to join in on their crusade against organic life. The Reapers repurposed the Protheans into the Collectors, who perform evil, malicious experiments on sapient organics that would make Unit 731 and Josef Mengele blush. All to determine which species is likely the best candidate for the next Reaper.
They are the bad guys in every definable term. The franchise has painted them as bad guys for the first two games and 99 percent of the third game. Hell, many bad guys from other franchises would look positively saintly compared to them.
Face it; the Star Child is an ass pull that has nothing to do with the actual conflict of the story, and was poorly ripped off from Deus Ex because they were rushing the third game, and Casey Hudson and Mac Walters thought they could do better than Drew Karpyshyn, the man who wrote KOTOR, Mass Effect 1 and 2, as well as the vanilla story of SWTOR, most of which were great stories. And all they accomplished was showing the world how much of a clown show the story group in Bioware truly was, without the right talent to watch over them.
And the Star Child broke the logic of the series to the point where Mass Effect lore nuts gave up and stopped taking the story seriously. The Star Child ending literally destroyed the WRPG Renaissance that started with KOTOR and ended with ME3's Star Child becoming the ultimate ass pull; the ultimate insult to the fanbase and the people who followed the lore and Bioware's works.
