@AeromusPrime22 wrote:For the Reapers going to Andromeda I actually find that easy to picture. They're thorough and wouldn't likely want that to slip through the cracks; remember in their own perverse way they feel they are saving the Milky Way races.
Also, given they wait 50k years what is 600 to them? If the arks can make the trip it will be easy for a Reaper given how much more advanced they are. And if they knew of the arks, they would likely know the Initiative has little in the way of defense. I would a single reaper could probably take it out.
The problem with this is how would they get there?
The Reapers are essentially stranded in dark space without a mass relay to retrieve them, otherwise there would have been no need for Sovereign, or the Collectors and various other fail-safes, as they could just fly in under their own power by setting off in time to arrive for each 50,000 year cycle. It very much seems as if the mass relays are as much a weakness as they are a strength to the Reapers, as they appear to be entirely dependent upon them to travel long distances; their main advantage is that they have control over the technology, and wipe out the Milky Way races before they achieve that same level of mastery (though the Protheans seemed to have gotten close).
We also know that the Reapers aren't all-knowing; they failed to wipe out the Protheans on Ilos, who succeeded in going unnoticed, but they underestimated how long it would take for the Reapers to withdraw, causing them to run out of power for their stasis system. If they had had larger power reserves on Ilos then the Prothean race could have survived the last cycle.
@AeromusPrime22 wrote:
The same way the arks got there, using propulsion.
The Arks were developed specifically to do this however; they are essentially giant ram scoops with a drive capable of taking the scooped particles to power/propel the ship, with a drive adapted to do this without exploding. While there's a lot that was still unknown about the Reapers, there's no reason to assume they were ever built to operate that way (why would they be?); they'd need to either adapt themselves for the long distance, or create a purpose built Reaper specifically for the pursuit.
On a similar basis, there's no reason to assume that the Reapers would even bother; they were tasked with "preserving" life in the Milky Way. While they're not simply machines they are still essentially slaves to that imperative (remember, they can be controlled by the Citadel/Crucible/Starchild, so they don't truly have free will).
I think if the Reapers could/wanted to pursue, then the Andromeda Initiative would have failed long before it arrived, unless the Benefactor succeeded in scrubbing all records as the Protheans did with Ilos.
I mean, it could be kind of cool to have the Initiative face off against a Reaper, e.g- if one pursued the Quarian Ark but was unable to catch up to it. Especially with all the implications that could have (learning what they are, the Initiative learning what might have happened to the Milky Way etc.) as well as the tensions with the Angara of having brought such a threat, maybe even luring it into conflict with the Kett before somehow using the Remnant to bring it down.
But on the other hand, there's a reason the game is set in a new galaxy, to get away from that baggage. It was cool finding out that the Benefactor knew about the threat, and that was what motivated them to back the Initiative, but beyond that I think it's better just to leave them in the past.
@Haravikk schrieb:
On a similar basis, there's no reason to assume that the Reapers would even bother; they were tasked with "preserving" life in the Milky Way. While they're not simply machines they are still essentially slaves to that imperative (remember, they can be controlled by the Citadel/Crucible/Starchild, so they don't truly have free will).
This! ^^
The Reapers are not evil beings that are set to destroy non synthetic life. What the do is evil from a human point of view of course, but they just follow the logic of an AI, and nothing in the narrative of Mass Effect implies that they are interested at things behind the Milky Way.
