Look I agree with mostly everyone that they should stay mysterious and shouldn't be explained, I mean why try to explain what you can't comprehend? But since Bioware had to try and explain it I just wanted to know what your guys thoughts would have been if you were the one writing the explanation, This is a what if topic and I made it because the reason for the reapers motivation in ME3 makes no sense at all.
All right so I'll go first, A long time ago when the Leviathan's reached the peak of their greatness. Technology was at it's highest level, but then galactic war broke out amongst the galaxy, Their first solution was to indoctrinate everyone into accepting peace.

However that method failed and so the war continued and thousands of planets were ravaged or completely destroyed, The Leviathan's, fearing another world wide galactic war begin working on the reapers, the ultimate galactic fail safe to protect the galaxy from any wars that could destroy all planets or ravage them until they are lifeless. The solution was supposed to be galactic indoctrination to force peace but once again it failed, the reapers then came up with a solution of their own. Reapers thought that because organics have feelings and have a desire for conflict that no matter what their would be a galactic war in an attempt to control the entire galaxy, The reapers then decide that they will destroy the Leviathan's but they leave behind the weaker species to continue life into the next cycle. Their plan worked but once again galactic war was imminent, so to create everlasting peace and make it possible for the next cycle to continue they destroy all evolved organics at the moment they are close to creating weapons that could wipe out the galaxy as well as ravaging planets beyond repair and outright destroying the other ones which would make organic life impossible to continue. They would leave the weaker species to live so that life will continue on, since the reapers are gone there is nothing to stop the species that are bitter enemies (such as krogans and turians, quarians and geth, etc.) from destroying each other as well as all other species in an attempt for galactic dominance.

Well there is my explanation as well as the possible scenario for the next game Mass effect 4.

I'm not good at remembering every little bit of lore, so I can't come up with much of a unifying theory that fits into everything else (particularly the leviathan dlc you mentioned, which I know absolutely nothing about), but I liked the Reapers just being "The Reapers". Big ambiguous overwhelming robot "Gods" who basically harvest organic life in order to assimilate their technologies and absorb their cultures in order to perpetuate their own advancement.

I legitimately didn't want to know where they came from. At the very least, that could have been its own trilogy/story, rather than trying to half-assedly cram their entire origin into a single cutscene.

I agree but I was giving my origin story because I despised the " official" origin story they came up with, but I already said in the beginning this is a what if scenario.

I don't really have the perspective to speak to this, but we all assume that the reapers are this super-advanced space-race whose mind cannot be fathomed by our simple cavemen living brains. This doesn't make sense to me. Usually sci-fi depicts the more advanced races and species as living up to a passive ideal. Aliens would let a planet's life destroy itself in order not to mess with its development. Mass Effect throws a wrench in this protocol popularized by Star Trek, with the Drell and the Krogan and most importantly every other species that the Reapers victimize. The reasoning behind the Reapers (or the goddamn shinyboy) is that life always creates synthetic life and a war breaks out. This is the viewpoint of the Reapers, which is itself synthetic life. Like I said earlier, we assume that we are both technically and psychologically less advanced than the Reapers. I think it's only one of the two that natural life is inferior to the Reapers.

The Reapers assault advanced life every once in a while, they say it's to maintain order, I say it's because they're hateful bigots. Basically they adhere to the philosophy of the White Man's Burden (which in modern times, I thought it referred to man boobs), where races they view as inferior must be dealt with accordingly. Humans/Turians/Asari/everyone else will undoubtedly screw themselves in the end, right? Let's make sure that doesn't happen, and also feast on their remains to spawn new versions of us. So why leave pre-spaceflight species alone? You don't pick a fruit when it isn't ripe. The Reapers may have, at one time, tried to live up to a philosophy to protect galactic life, but there would be better ways to go about this.

Anyone who has a passing interest in theoretical physics can tell you that our galaxy and the rest of universe has an expiration date. Eventually the universe will suffer from proton heat death. Long before that, life, both synthetic and natural will cease to exist because the properties of the universe will no longer allow it. The Reapers would obviously understand this, but like you or I would want to make the most of the time that they have.

My tl:dr theory of Reaper Motivation is this: they're less morally developed than the life they seek to destroy. They're self-absorbed, nihilistic, and prone to ritual.

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"My job? Toilets 'n boilers, boilers 'n toilets. Plus that one boilin' toilet. Fire me if'n you dare. "

This is why the Starchild bullshit was so fucking stupid, because it turned the entire motivation for the "unfathomable cosmic robot gods" into a fucking stupid logical fallacy. BEFORE they explained them that way, they were cool.


I like to think (putting stupid canon aside) that they do it as their way of evolution. Robots can't really evolve the way organic life can, so they let organic life do it FOR them, which is why they harvest civilizations rather than just straight up killing 'em for shits and giggles.

"You don't pick a fruit when it isn't ripe"

I think that's the only reason they let organic life exist in the first place, to let it ripen so that it can "nourish" the collective whole once absorbed.

I only played Mass Effect for like 10 hours. But from what I got...
They're for the most part mindless killers. Do they need a motive? Unless they advanced during 2 or 3. But even if they got smarter. They must have an instinct to kill. I forget if they were robots or organic. Either way it seemed all tgey knew was killing.

Edit: I went back and read what everyone said. I stand by what I said even though it probably made no sense. From what little I saw the reapers were totally mindless.

Edit 2: Read what Fox said and payed more attention. I agree about the evolution thing.
I'll leave now since I remember and know nothing.

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Mass effect is just a really bad halo where the guns don't work, yeah? So are the reapers the flood or covenant, I can tell you all kinds of reasons behind their motivations, ya see, there's this little blue dude called megaman, and when the galaxy calls he must ride so he grew up got miltary green, still has a charge gun but can follow it up with a headshot or a quick punch now and both the covenant and the flood don't like him very much and want him dead home run. so the covenant forms a religious space army and the flood reanimates a zombie space army to stop this man, but they don't and he won't stop killin them; warthogs, shotguns, snipes, gat, goose, ghost, tank, and the 'shee.


Also something about a jacob and miranda keyes, doesn't matter they both die.

I'd like to see the series from the point view from the Widow Sniper, aka the Widow-Maker, aka My Space Dick.

A slow motion montage of criminals/collectors/cerberus/reapers getting blown into pulp.

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"My job? Toilets 'n boilers, boilers 'n toilets. Plus that one boilin' toilet. Fire me if'n you dare. "