How did the reapers never fail a cycle
By fail i mean how did the reapers never miss anything when cleaning up. First off I know there isnt much info so some cycles could have had survivors that then got wiped out in the following cycle...
Forum Discussion
Not sure about the "more intelligent species than before".
Listening to Jaavik I understood Protheans actually were composed of several species (wich by being either beaten in submission or agreeing joined the Prothean Empire and thus became Protheans). The difference between the prothean cycle and the Shepard cycle is more along the line of how different species worked together. By all being Protheans and following a single ideology the Protheans became vulnerable once their tactics or whatever were analysed. On the other hand we have the current cycle wich is more about cooperating species working together to be stronger. Each species keeps their individuallity, their strength and weaknesses, alone they would have been quite easy to destroy. But together they somehow compliment each others strength and weakness and thus are able to stand a bigger chance.
That being said... We don't know for how many cycles Reapers have harvested... There were at the very least four cycles (Keepers, Prothean/Collectors, Leviathans and the one you play) but for what we know there has been much more cycles than that. So it would be somehow "logical" that you'd find two cycles where the political situation was the same as the one we encounter during the events of the game and a big number of advanced species. Maybe in some of those cycles there were more species thant in the one we know.
What makes the difference is based on so many different parameters. It's at the same time Shepard receiving the warning, to some point Shepard who is able to unite every species to the fight and assured the loyalty of quite a lot of key people. It also is the fact that Shepard and everyone got the tech from the previous cycles destined to end the Reapers once and for all.
And yeah, you can argue that for what we know only one species got "elevated" as the Reapers minions (Keepers and Collectors). But ME2 kinda makes a point about the Reapers choosing the species they want to keep and simply erasing every other. And even if you think about what Sovereign says it does not imply a small number of intelligent species.
This one is probably the most accurate tbh, i brought javik for most missions in my current playthrough and yeah there is a lot about how the protheans were an empire that dominated and brought weaker species into their empire. They were basically the protheans and all the races that lost to them and adopted their ideologies in order to survive. species that refused to follow the prothean way of life and join their empire were wiped out.
That was also their weakness, when the reapers figured out their strengths and weaknesses it applied to their whole empire because all races were following the protheans. In the current cycle all the races maintain their own strengths and weaknesses and work together.
I feel like realistically the reapers would have made a new capital ship out of all the main species and smaller ships out of all the lesser species. So in the current cycle i reckon asari, turian, salarian and maybe human would be capital ships because they are council races or whatever and then all the smaller species would become smaller ships, so the hanar, elcor, volus.
The drell just have no chance xD not enough of them to be turned :P
