Reapers
The Reapers, known as the Old Machines by the geth, are a highly advanced race of synthetic/organic living ships. The Reapers dwell in the dark void of space, an empty, starless expanse between galaxies. They hide there, sleeping for millennia, before being given the signal to return. Their origins are completely unknown. The first known contact of the Reapers with an organic life form was made by the Sovereign—who enslaved Saren Arterius, claiming then that the Reapers have neither beginning nor end. Even their true name is a mystery; “Reapers” was given by the Protheans, and the Sovereign declared that however the Protheans named them, it would still be incorrect: “We are We.”
The Sovereign also revealed that the Reapers were the original creators of the Citadel and the relays. These colossal structures exist in such a way that any sentient life in the galaxy will inevitably discover them and use them as a foundation for their technologies—a constantly occurring part of the cycle for harvesting sentient life in a never-ending cycle of harvest that has persisted for countless millennia.
Appearance
The Sovereign, the first known Reaper, bore a resemblance to a reaper cephalopod, with a bulky semi-cylindrical body tapering toward the back with a plate and a large number of “tentacles” extending from its head, in addition to six legs on the sides of its torso. When the Reaper fleet is depicted in dark space, they all have this standard appearance (though one Reaper in the foreground appears beetle-like) but with varying numbers of tentacles, shapes, and appearances, some with expanded heads, and others (particularly the Harbinger) having multiple burning eyes. This diversity presumably exists due to the method of reproduction utilized by the Reapers, in which a vast number of members of one species are gathered, melted down into genetic material, and then used to create a “larva” that incorporates the traits of the species from which it was formed. Nevertheless, it remains unclear by the end of Mass Effect 2 whether each new Reaper, created from organic material, will take on the cephalopod form of the Sovereign, Harbinger, and the like, or if the majority of the Reaper fleet descended from a long-extinct species of organic life whose appearance they now share.
The appearance of the Sovereign had a significant influence on the heretic geth. This is not surprising, given that the geth revered the Reapers as their “gods,” considering them the pinnacle of independent AI existence. Wherever the heretic geth go, they construct monuments to the Reapers that resemble the Sovereign's tentacles surrounding a glowing sphere, and they worship them. The Sovereign, apparently offended by the worship of such simple and insignificant synthetics, saw their value as pawns and potential replacements for the keepers.
Indoctrination
The Reapers and their technologies have an unusual effect on organic beings. Doctor Shu Qian and Eadan Had'dah began to behave strangely after contact with a “relic” they found. This mental manipulation is known as indoctrination. Simply put, any organic being in close proximity to the Reapers for too long begins to believe that the Reapers are correct in their judgments and will do anything to serve their aims. Gradually, the mind breaks down until the individual becomes a mindless slave, no longer capable of independent thought. The Sovereign could control the rate of this process, as seen in the case of Saren; for Saren to serve the Reapers most effectively, he needed a fragment of free will. Ultimately, this convinced him that the only way to preserve organic life was to prove his worth to the Reapers. Only beings of immense spiritual strength, such as the asari matriarchs, can resist indoctrination, but even their resistance is fleeting and only delays the inevitable. Matriarch Benezia preferred death to the risk of being indoctrinated again, and when Saren ultimately rebels against the Sovereign, he commits suicide to prevent any subsequent harm to the galaxy. Indoctrination is permanent (perhaps the only exception being Shiala), and it is the Reapers’ most insidious weapon. Even more horrifying is the fact that the indoctrination field remains active even if a Reaper is severely damaged or incapacitated. A Cerberus science team was indoctrinated while inside a Reaper that had been drifting completely unconscious in orbit around a star for 37 million years, evidently only due to the mass effect field.
Technologies
Even without their indoctrination influence, the Reapers are incredibly powerful warships with devastating technologies. The Sovereign’s weaponry was unmatched in the known galaxy. Each of the tentacles of its body was equipped with a powerful magnetohydrodynamic cannon that fired a stream of molten metal at the speed of light, capable of destroying a cruiser with a single precision shot. Its massive back-mounted guns effortlessly punched through the hulls of even the largest dreadnought-class ships like a knife through butter, passing through their kinetic shields. The Sovereign’s defense included powerful shields that could block fire from an entire fleet, along with an incredibly durable hull. Despite being living machines, the Reapers have internal compartments that can be used to transport crew, either to enhance the indoctrination of their slaves or to allow these slaves to be close to them, presumably for both of these purposes. A hypothesis in the Codex states that each individual Reaper has a massive zero-element core that, in conjunction with the vast amounts of energy they surely have at their disposal, allows it to generate the stable mass effect field required to land on a planet.
Regardless, the Reapers are not invisible. When the Reapers fall into slumber between cycles, they are vulnerable. With a secure refuge in the dark void of space, the Reapers are confident that they will not be accidentally discovered and destroyed while they await the Citadel relay to be opened by their left-behind, purpose-built vanguard. Concentrated efforts from the fleets of organic races are enough to destroy a Reaper, even if it is at full power, and a single fleet was able to destroy the Sovereign when its shields and weapons were taken offline.
History
Cycle of Destruction
For reasons that remain unknown, the Reapers obliterate all sentient races in the Milky Way galaxy, returning to the dark void of space with the organic technology and resources. The Reapers leave no evidence of their actions or their own existence—only the desolate, barren ruins of those who lived before. However, based on events from Mass Effect 2, it can be inferred that the Reapers use enslaved organic beings to create more of their kind, as seen in the case of the Human-Reaper.
The trap set by the Reapers is simple in its structure. Sooner or later, sentient races will create an FTL (faster-than-light) drive, but will still be limited in the speed of their movement. By leaving a network of relays allowing for instant travel across the galaxy and leading to the impressive Citadel, the Reapers ensured it would become the center of galactic civilization. Moreover, the Sovereign reveals that the presence of mass relays guides sentient races along a predetermined path, which also applies to the technologies of weapons and armor (in every culture of the Citadel races, both are based upon the use of zero-element). This is likely done to minimize the chances of organic life discovering alternative, more advanced technologies and evolving down a different “path”; or, as the Sovereign explains: “By using it (mass relay technology), your society develops as we wish for it to develop.”
Another possible explanation is that by harvesting resources and technologies from organic races, the introduction of Mass Effect technologies (used by the Reapers) ensures that organic races will develop certain technologies that would, in turn, be useful to the Reapers in subsequent harvests.
Once sentient races have settled on the Citadel with the help of the keepers, an organic race created or enslaved by the Reapers must maintain the basic functions of the Citadel without revealing its secrets until the left-behind Reaper Vanguard signals the Citadel to activate the station's hidden mass relay. This opens the route between the Citadel and the dark void of space. The Reapers suddenly appear and kill the leaders of the united peoples on the Citadel before breaking apart and annihilating all galactic life around them.
Because the Reapers know their first appearance in the galaxy will occur at the center of galactic politics, information, and economy, they are able to incapacitate nearly any resistance before the Citadel civilizations understand they are under attack. The Citadel also gives them control over the network of relays, cutting off star systems from one another and disrupting communications.
The Reapers then use their control over the Citadel and its data to begin the most brutal phase of their attack. The records allow them to locate every inhabited planet and strike against them, either to harvest resources from them or to enslave their populations through indoctrination, turning them into secret agents. The destruction of all organic life may be part of the Reapers' reproductive cycle, during which all sentient life in the galaxy is gathered and melted down into genetic material to create the techno-organic shells of the Reapers based on the physical form of the destroyed species.
After the Reapers harvest the galaxy, they erase any traces of their existence from records and return to the dark void.
Vanguard
The only Reaper left in our galaxy to observe the development of sentient life after the destruction of the Protheans was the Sovereign—named so by organic races (though the geth knew it by the name “Nazara”). This was a colossal dreadnought several times larger than any known ship—even the massive asari flagship, the Destiny Ascension, seemed like a dwarf in comparison. Initially, everyone thought it was nothing more than the flagship of the rogue Spectre, Saren Arterius, who was the first to discover it.
The Sovereign acted as a ship and transport for Saren and his geth servants—however, it was later revealed by Commander Shepard that it was actually the Sovereign and its brethren who stood behind the war. Saren began searching for the Sovereign at the end of Mass Effect: Revelation, using stolen research data from Doctor Shu Qian, ultimately discovering the Reaper near or within the Perseus Veil.
Protheans Strike Back
After the previous cycle that involved the destruction of the Prothean Empire, some members of the Prothean scientific elite hid on the planet Ilos, surviving the genocide. The realization of the connection between the Reapers, the Citadel, and the keepers took them decades, but this knowledge gave them the key to end the cycle forever. At that time, the Protheans were the only advanced race with space technology advanced enough to attract the attention of the Reapers and capable of giving a chance for successful evolution to sentient races on other planets, including the hanar and humans.
The Protheans developed a way to warn successive generations of sentient races about Reaper attacks. This plan was built on the fact that the keepers had evolved and now responded to signals that came directly from the Citadel itself, rather than remotely from the Reapers. As mentioned above, the vanguard Reaper would send a signal to the Citadel, which commanded the keepers to open the relay of the station, opening a path for the next Reaper invasion. However, Prothean scientists used a prototype relay of their own design—the Channel—to move to the Citadel and changed the signal of the station. When the Sovereign decided it was time to begin the cycle anew, the keepers ignored its command.
This complicated matters significantly for the Sovereign. In order to free its brethren in the dark void, a way had to be found to manually activate the relay within the Citadel. Although Reapers are undoubtedly beings of horrifying power and brutality, a single Reaper would not survive the united strike of the Citadel races in open combat. An agent who could discover the Channel was needed. That agent was Saren, capable of comprehending the vision from the Prothean Beacon. Together with a fleet of geth, the Reaper launched a full assault on the Citadel, nearly destroying the entire fleet.
Fortunately, Saren was stopped by Commander Shepard and his squad, and the Sovereign was destroyed. How long this will delay the return of the Reapers remains to be seen. Shepard knows that the Reapers, even while dormant and at rest, will soon begin an attack from the dark void. He has vowed to find a way to stop them.
Reapers and Collectors
After Commander Shepard defeated Saren and the Sovereign, the Collectors began attacking human colonies and abducting their settlers. Cerberus discovered that the Reapers were behind this and decided to recruit Shepard to ensure humanity's protection from this new Reaper threat. In time, Shepard uncovered the alarming facts regarding the true connection between the Reapers and the Collectors. Humans were being abducted apparently because humanity is a race with great genetic diversity and is the people who defeated the Sovereign, which proved sufficient to attract the Reapers' attention. It was revealed that the Collectors were originally Protheans who were captured by the Reapers and genetically altered for their needs.
The Collectors operated under the direct command of the Harbinger Reaper, who ordered the Collectors to abduct humans in the Terminus Systems. The captured humans were delivered to the Collector Base and processed into organic material for creating a new Reaper based on the human form. EDI posited that the Human-Reaper was in an embryonic state.
Upon being discovered by Shepard, the incomplete Human-Reaper consisted of a copy of a human body: skull, arms, and chest, with the lower part of the spine and torso still in the process of being created. EDI concluded that those abducted tens of thousands of colonists had already been used. Shepard did everything in his power to destroy the Human-Reaper.
With the destruction of the Human-Reaper and the defeat of the Collectors, the Reapers lost all chances of using the Citadel relay for a quick return to the Milky Way Galaxy. The Harbinger and the other Reapers awakened from their millennia-long slumber and began the long journey to the Milky Way, setting the stage for Mass Effect 3.
Notable Reapers
• Sovereign.
• Harbinger.
• Abandoned Reaper.
• Human-Reaper.
Interesting Facts
• The idea of a terrifying and incomprehensible alien mind waiting in the depths of space is a hallmark of **Lovecraftian horror.** This similarity is underscored by one of the records from the Cerberus research team aboard an abandoned Reaper, which states that “even dead gods can dream.” This is a clear homage to Cthulhu—“In his house at R’lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits, dreaming.”
• The concept of a living spaceship is often used in science fiction. In fact, this trope is personification. **See here.**
• In the final scene of Mass Effect 2 depicting the Reaper fleet, there are approximately 295 Reapers shown among those depicted.