It’s always bothered me how the characters of Mass Effect simply accept the Reapers telling them they are inconceivable, unknowable, uncountable blah blah blah so I decided to do just go ahead and do the math to get a rough estimate on how many Reaper ships could be defeated conventionally, and how much time they really have left in the Galaxy going at their current snail’s pace of growth.
There can only possibly be a number of 274,000 Reapers IN TOTAL if we are to believe Starchild saying every cycle ends with the birth of a (single) Reaper, ignoring the fact that some have in fact died in the past. Most are Destroyers (51% conservatively); meaning that there are at most 134260 Capital Ships and at least 139740 Destroyers. As a reminder, Troop Transports and Harvesters (who do not appear in-game) are not real Reapers as they lack sentience and are glorified drones, they can probably be destroyed with relative ease if they lack even the weak defenses of the Destroyers, which, if you don’t remember, can be destroyed by a single surface-to-air missile or an M-920 Cain. Some things to consider: "A cruiser is noted to be able to take out a Destroyer fairly quickly," "[capital ships] are extremely durable, capable of taking the continuous and simultaneous fire of 4 dreadnoughts before they start to lose their kinetic barriers." - per Codex
The Systems Alliance has 2500 warships, 1000 logistical ships, 14000 fighters, 9 dreadnoughts. 17509 ships total. So, 14% warships, 5% logistical ships, 80.9995% fighters, and 0.0005% dreadnoughts. Turian Hierarchy: 48 dreadnoughts, 12 super dreadnoughts Going by Alliance numbers, they have approximately 275 warships, 110 logistical ships, and 15555 fighters per dreadnought. This means the Turian Hierarchy has at least 13200 warships, 5280 logistical ships, and a whopping 746640 fighters. 765120 ships total minus the dreadnoughts (this will be important later).
Salarian Union possesses 16 dreadnoughts Using our key again, they must have approximately 4400 warships, 1760 logistical ships, and 248880 fighters. 255040 ships total minus the dreadnoughts. The Quarian Flotilla has 50,000 vessels, without specific numbers we can again infer the division of ship types based on the Alliance’s proportions. Migrant fleet: 7000 warships, 2500 logistical ships, 40475 fighters, 25 dreadnoughts. 49975 ships minus the dreadnoughts. The Batarian Hegemony's exact numbers are unknown, but according to the codex they have at least 1 dreadnought. Even though they likely have more I'll create a proportional army for them assuming they only have just one. This means on paper, the Batarian Hegemony's navy is 11% the size of the Alliance's. Batarian Hegemony: 275 warships, 110 logistical ships, 15555 fighters, 1 dreadnought. 15940 ships total minus the dreadnought. The Volus have a single dreadnought, as such their military strength is identical to the Batarian Hegemony’s. The Asari have 21 Dreadnoughts. Asari Republics: 5775 warships, 2310 logistical ships, 326655 fighters, 21 dreadnoughts. 334740 ships total minus the dreadnought. The Geth have at most 10,000 ships in a single fleet on Charoum; they have 3 other worlds under their control: Rannoch, Haestrom, and Ammut. These numbers are assuming then that their total number of ships is at most 40,000. Geth Armada: 5600 warships, 2000 logistical ships, 32380 fighters, 20 dreadnoughts. 39980 ships total minus the dreadnoughts. The Elcor likely have no dreadnoughts and no significant military power to speak of, neither do the Hanar and Drell. The Vorcha have no military, and neither do the Krogan, though Krogan ground troops could probably disable Destroyers with ease.
BUT HEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYYYY THATS JUST A THEORY A GAME THEORY thanks for watching
Austin Torres
There are at least 3 Leviathans and they can disable a Reaper Capital ship with ease if it is in close proximity. I'll assume only 1 is needed to achieve this, so add 3 Reapers to our total strength. Again, a single Reaper cannot survive a combined attack of 4 or more dreadnoughts at once. In total, the races of the Milky Way Galaxy have a combined power of: 39025 warships, 15070 logistical ships, 1440140 fighters, 141 dreadnoughts. 1494235 ships minus any dreadnoughts. For the sake of simplicity I will assume the Turian Super Dreadnoughts are on par with a Leviathan, which as previously stated can 1v1 a Reaper, so we are left with at least 15 Super Dreadnoughts, the actual number may be higher but as far as I can tell Turians are the only race that has them. Hackett said killing Sovereign "took everything we had." going by the proportion of the Alliance fleet we can infer just how much the little ships contribute to the overall effort per military and then add them up minus the dreadnoughts and super dreadnoughts as we are given exact numbers on how they match a Reaper pound-for-pound, they will be added later. For reference, 17500 ships = 1 capital ship dead. Therefore combined forces could take out a total of 85 capital ships without the aid of dreadnoughts, with their aid that number increases to 135. Assuming that each cycle will destroy Reapers at a geometric rate (which is unlikely as technology tends to advance exponentially), the Reapers have at most 101,450,000 years left to live, only 200 cycles, and a mere 200 more Reapers constructed within that time. I am being exceptionally generous to the Reapers in these estimates as well, the total number of Reapers killed could be far higher.
Basically the Reapers are retarded and for a supposedly infallible super-intelligence they cannot prepare for something 101,450,000 years in the future despite having existed since around the literal dawn of time.
Have a bump out of sheer unironic admiration for your autism.
Camden Butler
thank you. I recently marathoned the series and couldn't find a single resource that determined any of this, so I decided to the boring shit myself.
Michael Myers
Nice, mindplay but let me point out some logical jumps you made.
1. 4 Dreadnoughts can take out a Reaper, who says that there will always be 4 present?
2. >>(which is unlikely as technology tends to advance exponentially)
This is expressly not the case, as it is mentioned this is the first cycle where the tech progressed further then the reapers allowed it because the Proteans smuggled the Jumpgate virus into the citadel, previous cycles and presumably coming cycles wont have this flaw.
But i must agree that reapers lost from their eldritch being much in the second and third game. Not only in ther raw power but most importantly in their mental faculties. The eternal masterminds of biological extermination have become just metalsquid aliens....
Yeah the Mass Effect sequels were retarded no need to gain chromosomes about it
Benjamin Barnes
there won't always be 4 present, but if the races of the galaxy are semi-competent tacticians, they will attempt to choose engagements with lone Reapers over ones with multiple. As with the advancement of technology, I doubt the Reapers can perfectly limit the extent of its growth, though I still did give them lots of leeway in my estimates. The lack of the jumpgate virus is somewhat of a factor, but disabling it for just the current cycle makes it more likely that the next cycles will discover Reaper weapon and shield tech. I mention this instead of Shepard's cycle 3 years of time to prepare since they didn't take advantage of it anyway beyond the aforementioned reverse-engineering of Reaper tech.
Logan Anderson
reapers were always pretty pathetic in sci-fi power scaling terms
Christopher Thomas
It was always retarded they spent so much time constructing an unknown huge orbital deus ex machina machine instead of building massive spaceguns with engines strapped to them, since a reaper has been shown to have been destroyed in a previous cycle by exactly such a weapon. With their massive fleet your autism just calculated and enough spaceguns, they should have enough firepower to btfo reapers who seem to have exclusively close range weapons
Eli Brooks
Im somewhat with you but there was evidence of previous cycles fighting back sometimes even better weaponry then the current cycle: -The giant corpse on on of the plantes. -The continent sized "railgun" that destroyed a planet in an another system.
I think what i want to express is that your calculations are not wrong just express a linear progression of events and robbing the Reapers of the ability to evolve, which they should as they have historical perspective and want to use its one of their main goals to "safekeep" the unvierse, which they are capable of( or better were capable in the first game, and then it went fuzzy....)
Daniel Nelson
They unrionically should've never elaborated on the origins of the reapers.
Thomas Williams
The Crucible never made any sense. There's a lot of talking up about how important The Crucible is but let me lay it out for anyone who is confused. The Crucible is a giant battery that had been designed and constructed by hundreds, if not thousands or possibly Millions, of different races and species across the Galaxy in a collaborative effort across millions of years between cycles of civilizations that could not talk to one another that require the interface of The Catalyst that no one had ever seen before.
Which just goes back the fact that Mass Effect 2 fucked Mass Effect 3 long for the ending did
Mass effect and bioshock killed my urge to ever tough AAA games again
Nathan Fisher
It's not unfathomable that the reapers are made out of some unobtanium alloy, or have some kind of bullshit special "eezo" field around them that would make the lesser races ineffective against them. Killing Sovereign took the entirety of the citadel's forces, and even then it took an asspull by weakening sovereign proper when you killed saren. Then they made reapers a joke when they had you destroy a reaper with some shitty weapon on the back of a truck in rannoch.
Christopher Long
this is very true, I guess what caused my thinking that way was the flashbacks in the From Ashes DLC. The Reapers had identical weaponry and capabilities compared to Shepard's cycle, and the dead Reaper orbiting the brown dwarf wasn't ever noted as being significantly less advanced than Sovereign either. logically yes, they should be able to evolve to be far more effective, but from what we've been shown they have preferences in what weaponry they use, if I had to pull a reason out of my ass it would be to avoid permanently making planets uninhabitable. that was the combined Quarian Fleet attacking it, which according the codex is overkill. it's not very consistent. whatever the Reapers are made out of, once their shields are down any solid object travelling faster than light is going to penetrate and destroy them.
Easton James
The Reapers interaction with the Quarians it's kind of strange and stupid. Considering what their motivations were you would think that the Quarians were more important than they ended up being. Because they were the only one struggling against what the Reapers consider to be the central conflict of organic life. And they were winning. By every metric The Reaper should have left them alone. Or at least put more effort into their study than "lol leukemia." But no. They actually helped the Geth. Which is in direct violation of their purpose. They didn't even have any plans to put the quarians into the reaper goo, there are no processing ships on Rannoch. So what the fuck? Were the Reapers just gonna kill them for no reason?
Alexander Ortiz
>By every metric The Reaper should have left them alone The Quarians started the conflict with the geth, which is exactly what the reapers try to prevent every cycle.
Owen Price
Something something they doubted cyborg's use as tools, considering the Keepers were modified by other races and evolved in a way that inhibited the Reapers could operate, the Collectors failed them, probably the last in a long line of servant races that failed them. Machines are easier to control, so it makes sense that if you want tools, you would use something like the Geth. Buuut, as you pointed out, that would actually go counter to their intended purpose. It's a plot hole, nothing but, they really shit the bed when writing for ME3, not to say that ME2 wasn't showing cracks already.
If you ask me the Reapers should have been trapped in dark space forever after ME1, and the sequels should have been about different galaxy-wide threats and wars.
Andrew Campbell
"evolved in a way that inhibited the Reapers ABILITY TO operate"
Jayden Kelly
Its a bullshit game for atheists that cannot cope that we will never leave our world and that God exists. Every step of the way its just cope after cope.
Justin Cruz
Okay? According to the catalyst their mandate is to ensure the continued existence of organic life, not to play referee in their Wars. The Reapers don't care if the Krogans push the Rachni to extinction, they only care if synthetic life is responsible. But the Quarians had won their war. They blew up the Geth's Dyson sphere and were gonna wipe them out. Just for the Reapers to end up saving the Geth against their organic creators
Robert Anderson
Are sci fi video games always written poorly? I have very limited exposure to sci fi video games but it always seems like the first one does ok setting up a setting and then every sequel tears apart the seams until it's a huge plot-hole riddled mess.
Easton Reed
I forgot the dead reaper, thats very stupid. i mean secrecy is one of the major parts of their whole plan and they just leave evidence? I mean would it not have gone like: -Hey Reaper buddy have you seen Frank, he did not come back from Taurus Rho? -Ah no worries, he knows how important secrecy is surly he wont fuck up...
And dont even get me started on the WHOLE DLC of Leviathan. That they are supposedly still alive is a plot whole the side of a multiverse.
Wyatt Lopez
You know I would have been so easy to say that Sovereign was supposed to find Frank's dead body since he's the guy who supposed to stay behind in case the Citadel fails for some reason. You can even say that's how Sovereign and the Geth ended up meeting.
Also did Sovereign not get the message for why he exists? Because Sovereign claims that the purpose of the Reapers are beyond organic understanding just for his boss to explain the purpose of the Reapers in like 2 minutes.
Evan Richardson
Better to lie and leave Shepard with nothing than tell the truth and give him intel.
