[Mass Effect: Races] The Reapers

This is Mass Effect March! In honor of the release of Mass Effect 3, this entire month is devoted to digging into this epic trilogy. We’ll explore the different races, themes, and some major story arcs. At the end of the month we’ll cap things off with a week of posts on Mass Effect 3 to see how everything is resolved (or not). This week we examine the Reapers and begin to try to figure out their plans.

The Reapers are undoubtedly one of the most awesome and powerful enemies in gamer lore. They are machines, but they are also sentient beings. They walk the line between living beings and inanimate objects. This concept is so difficult to comprehend, the Galactic Council wouldn’t acknowledge them as a threat.

We learn that the Reapers destroyed the Protheans, the most advanced civilization at the time, and left behind less-advanced races like humanity. The Reapers follow a cycle in which they allow a species to develop and grow until they are eventually harvested by the Reapers when they come back. As we learn from Mass Effect 2, part of the Reapers’ plan is to use human bio-matter to build a special Reaper that they will unleash on humanity. This Reaper is human-shaped, just to add insult to injury.

"The Human-Reaper is people!!!"

This manipulation of life in the galaxy alongside the Protheans’ destruction and the Geth’s deification of them make them seem god-like within the Mass Effect universe. The game seeks to make the player feel a sense of powerlessness and dread at the thought of the Reapers because of their unstoppable power. Perhaps even instill a fear of…god?

But the Reapers are not gods. In fact, they’re just as mortal as the rest of us and they’re subject to the same constraints as the rest of the universe. They can’t be everywhere and do everything, so they have to manipulate others to accomplish their will. As we see with the Collectors, even that doesn’t always work out. The Reapers cannot create life, their history has shown that they only manipulate what life already exists. They can destroy life and encourage it’s re-growth in a certain direction using the mass effect relays, but they cannot make a new organic creature. They kill, then wait.

The Reapers are really nothing more than really advanced, efficient predators. There exists in the Mass Effect galaxy a giant complex food chain. The Reapers are undoubtedly at the top of that food chain. Like any predator, their survival is dependent on feeding on or using the creatures further down the ladder. In the end, their sole purpose is to dominate and consume. The Reapers have been described as looking squid-like because of the shape of their bodies and the tentacles. But based on their purpose and nature, they actually resemble something else: a reaching hand.

Nom nom nom nom Earth!

In the above image from the Mass Effect 3 trailer, the Reapers seem like giant hands reaching down to earth to take and consume. Is that really all that impressive? Is that the pinnacle of galactic existence? Granted they’re above us on the food chain, but they’re only just another creature doing what it must do to survive. Humanity’s survival or demise seems to rely on the appetite and desire of a more advanced predator in the environment. That makes their existence as well as ours equally meaningless, we’re both equal participants in a meaningless cycle. This evolutionary understanding of life leads to impotent “gods” and a sense of purpose that goes no farther than survival.

In spite of the world view in Mass Effect, our reality does have a God whose purpose far surpasses simple survival. The Reapers’ mythology echos that of Greek mythology where petty gods seem to “need” the devotion and praise of us mortals. Our God is not like that. He is one who is worthy and deserving of praise, but he by no means needs our worship. It is comforting to know that we have a God that exists happily on his own without requiring our devotion or efforts. A God who doesn’t need us is a God who is powerful enough to take care of us when we need him. Revelation 21:6 says, “And he [God] said to me, ‘It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.'” God was before us and he will be there after us and so he is the only one capable of giving us the water of life.

There are some mysteries yet to be learned about the Reapers, but those must wait until Mass Effect 3.

Next time we’ll take one last look at the overall Mass Effect universe before diving into Mass Effect 3. The question at hand is this: What does it mean to live in a universe built on principles of survival?