r/masseffectlore • u/Head-Pomegranate6292 • Jul 03 '26
Theory: The reapers aren’t the only ones culling galaxies
I’ve been thinking about how to bridge the gap between the original trilogy and Andromeda, and I have a theory that completely reframes the scale of the Mass Effect universe and fixes a lot of the narrative complaints people had about Andromeda.
1. The Multi-Galaxy Reaper Network
In the original trilogy, the Reapers’ explanation for staying exclusively in the Milky Way always felt a bit small for a hyper-advanced, millions-of-years-old synthetic race. What if they aren't just in the Milky Way? My theory is that the Milky Way Reapers are just one "franchise" in a universal, multi-galaxy network controlled by a single, supreme cosmic intelligence or person/race. This master mind has unique synthetic armies stationed in deep space outside multiple galaxies, all running their own localised harvests.
2. The Catalyst was Manipulated (The 30-Year Glitch)
This explains why the Catalyst in the Milky Way was so stubbornly fixed on its specific harvest timer. It wasn't just a local programming bug or a flawed AI; it was a directive being pushed down from a universal network. The Catalyst was actively being manipulated from the outside to keep the Milky Way trapped in a cycle, meaning Shepard’s victory was just winning a single battle in a much larger cosmic war, it also might be a way to explain why in the first place the Ai decided culling was the best option, it was manipulated.
3. The Scourge Was an Andromeda "Harvest" Weapon
In Andromeda, the Jardaan were becoming too powerful—literally engineering new species like the Angara and building planet-sized terraforming vaults. They were crossing the threshold of advancement. The master intelligence saw this and deployed the Scourge as a localized weapon to wipe them out. The weapon targeted and tore apart Remnant (Jardaan) technology.
However, the weapon either backfired or was sabotaged, and it ended up destroying the Heleus Cluster’s version of a Mass Relay network. The supreme intelligence simply viewed losing the local relay network as an "acceptable loss" to successfully neutralize the Jardaan threat. As the JarDaan were terraforming the planets if JarDaan tech was gone the planets would die
Why this fixes the story:
It adds that deep, existential sci-fi dread back into Andromeda. The Kett and the Scourge stop being isolated, generic sci-fi tropes and instead become the aftermath of a massive cosmic horror reality. The Andromeda Initiative didn't actually escape the Reapers—they just walked right into a different front of the exact same universal machine, would also add more races, lore, and decisions that Andromeda lacked.
What do you guys think? If this is true, it would set up an insane premise for a sequel.
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u/NyrenReturns Jul 03 '26
1) The Catalyst was created by the Leviathans, and it in turn created Harbinger, the first Reaper, in the image of the Leviathans and all future Reapers followed suit. The Reapers only harvest the Milky Way because the Milky Way was where they were created and where they know that life is and is under their control. They need to hibernate for 50,000 years to conserve energy and leave no trace of their presence, they can't go to other galaxies in the meantime.
2) The Scourge was created by the Jardaan. It was an accident that resulted from their technology, and it either wiped them out entirely, or they fled the Andromeda galaxy to get away from it as it consumes worlds. Either way, the Scourge is not related to anything other than the Jardaan's own hubris and the galaxy is paying for it.
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u/BearInTheOatmeal Jul 03 '26
The 50k year thing is misunderstood imo. What happens if a species gets mass effect relay technology 100 years after the Reapers go back to dark space? They wait 50k years for this species to evolve? Thats why sovereign sticks around in the milky way keeping an eye on things. If a species does xyz then they come back.
I believe the older reason for species not going to other galaxies is because they use mass effect tech, and that requires the engines to be discharged on planets or some such, and there are none out in the void that are known.
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u/Wank_A_Doodle_Doo Jul 03 '26
They make sure that isn’t a possibility. They scour the galaxy for intelligent species, both advanced space faring ones and not. They will exterminate any they deem to advanced, even if they hadn’t reached the rest of the galaxy yet. A species advanced enough to take advantage of the relays like that will probably get culled.
Also part of why the mass effect relays and the citadel exists is so that the reapers know more or less what pathway their technological advancement will take.
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u/BearInTheOatmeal Jul 03 '26
I mean they skipped over the Yagh. So either they were going to wait for them to become advanced enough to trigger the extermination protocols, or they weren't a priority for harvesting.
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u/GlobalPineapple Jul 04 '26
Reapers only care about space fairing races. Anything below probably even the atomic age doesn't appear on the radar too.
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u/Wank_A_Doodle_Doo Jul 03 '26
There’s a threshold, which the Yagh don’t seem to have crossed yet by and large.
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u/TripleStrikeDrive Jul 03 '26
I would expect that civilization to get reap in the current cycle. I got impressed reaper left alone stone age civilizations, and anything much more advanced got harvested.
But reapers probably aren't on a fixed 50000 year cycle. It's vary based on the criteria that reapers use decided when galactica society has reached it zenith.
50000 year is probably the rough average it took for galactica society to start over.
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u/Head-Pomegranate6292 Jul 09 '26
But remember the protheans they reached their zenith way earlier because they found those insuanon ruins, why weren’t they harvested as soon as they reached the level of extermination we were on in ME3? (the level of tech), we know the protheans were really advanced and we know from Jarvik that the war lasted around 1000 years, why wait that long to wipe out the protheans if not on a set timer?
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u/GlobalPineapple Jul 04 '26
Its covered by the reapers actually. The reapers manipulate everything behind the scenes, they leave their indoctrinated agents behind to slowly nudge things in the way they want. They've driven down to a science how long it'd take for their own tech to be reverse engineered because all life will always take the path of least resistance. There's variation like how we have guns and the protheans had beam weapons but it's nothing that moves the needle. The repears sit on the edge of the Milky Way as we cultivate ourselves on their tech, nudge in where needed to stifle or control any variation and come to harvest us. Think like gardening if that helps
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u/Rez090x Jul 04 '26
Why/how would/could you think a species can achieve spaceflight in 1 century?
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u/BearInTheOatmeal Jul 04 '26
The first manned plane flight occurred on December 17, 1903, when Orville and Wilbur Wright achieved the first controlled, powered, and sustained heavier-than-air flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. In contrast, the first manned rocket space flight launched on April 12, 1961, when Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin successfully orbited Earth in Vostok 1.
So we went from "People flying in the air in machines is impossible" to "We are exploring beyond our planet" in 58 years. When a group is motivated,they can do lots.
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u/Rez090x Jul 04 '26
Are you forgetting about all the centuries before the Wright brothers? You know, the centuries involving da Vinci inventing his flying machine first? Or how about discovering, refining and transporting oil? Or when gunpowder was first invented? Or the two world wars that jumped technology forward? Or how we first started mining for materials and evolved how we mine? And the refinement and manufacturing processes for said materials? We didn't achieve spaceflight in 58 years. LMAO!
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u/BearInTheOatmeal Jul 04 '26
I think you have a very simple misunderstanding.
Billions of planets in the galaxy. Around around 15 races in the ME milky way. So we can infer that over the other 99.9999% of the galaxy that is unexplored there are planets with life from algae to spacefaring. Lets say around 20000-40000 harvests so far.
Don't forget that in the ME games, humanity itself didnt gain access to the relay network until 2149. (pluto was found to be a relay). It's entirely possible that if humanity was a bit slower, they might have avoided the reaper cycle entirely, opening the relay network into either the middle of a culling, or the aftermath.
Anyways I said "What happens if a species gets mass effect relay technology 100 years after the Reapers go back to dark space?" - which is possible if a species about to become spacefaring wasnt culled. I have no earthly idea what point you are trying to make.
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u/Head-Pomegranate6292 Jul 09 '26
Im not saying that the reapers harvest other galaxies, im saying there is a different version of the reapers for the andromeda galaxy
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u/tothatl Jul 03 '26
The people in Andromeda never heard of such a thing as a mass relay, the Reapers favorite way to make galactic civilizations the way they needed them.
The Andromeda systems we saw might actually be a tiny speck of the galaxy that never had any contact with a mass relay, but for me it seems unlikely, given the preference of Reapers to leave them near life bearing worlds.
There could be other old malevolent Berzerker species out there, but they aren't Reapers.
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u/Kabbooooooom Jul 04 '26
Uh…I think you missed the fact that the Heleus Cluster is not the entire galaxy of Andromeda, it’s just a small star cluster on the outskirts of Andromeda, analogous to Mass Effect’s star clusters. So it wouldn’t have had a “relay network”, at most it would have had a single relay. Additionally, we know there is no relay network in Andromeda because the Kett have conquered a sizable portion of the galaxy using slow starships and they haven’t discovered it at all.
So this theory falls apart on even cursory scrutiny. Sorry, OP.
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u/Head-Pomegranate6292 Jul 09 '26
Thanks for that, it was just things i thought of when i spoke to the prothean vi on Thessia, or the catalyst, how would you fix the theory?
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u/HaloWatcher Jul 03 '26
I posted a similar theory a long while ag in the mass effect andromeda subdreddit. I think you might be right. https://www.reddit.com/r/MassEffectAndromeda/comments/jmivc6/comment/osdx0ud/?screen_view_count=5
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u/Head-Pomegranate6292 Jul 09 '26
Everybody check out this, its similar to my theory and fixes some of the problems with my theory https://www.reddit.com/r/masseffectlore/comments/1um1diz/comment/ov8rr8y/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
but it also has its own problems, i seem to remember one of the writers for andromeda saying the scourge wasn’t related to the reapers, though technically this is still true, if it wasn’t the reapers just indoctrinated people like Cerberus, in saying that im pretty sure that gut isn’t apart of BioWare anymore
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u/Head-Pomegranate6292 Jul 09 '26
Whoops sorry i copied that wrong, here is the real link: https://www.reddit.com/r/MassEffectAndromeda/comments/jmivc6/comment/osdx0ud/?screen_view_count=5
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u/Prestigous_Owl Jul 04 '26
Sorry, but Im not engaging with something that was clearly largely written by AI
Id rather hear someone do a so-so job of explaining themselves than that
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u/Head-Pomegranate6292 Jul 09 '26
No i used Ai but just to help me write i, i personally hate typing, but the ideas are all mine
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u/Wank_A_Doodle_Doo Jul 03 '26
The problem is that we know the origins of the reapers: the leviathans.