Mike Gamble is now Project Director at BioWare - What could he be in charge of?

Good point. But it seems that harvesting is very very important to them. Also, I guess they might say that by occupying the planets, they deny the organics exactly the economic and military bases that are so important to them. But yea, it would probably be more efficient, to just destroy all major infrastructure and then move on for the time being.

It always seemed to me that the reapers have a bit of trouble adjusting their tactics from the previous cycles. When they had control over the relays, they just shut everything down and basically went system by system (at least that's the impression I got from Vigil's description. Now, the relays are still open (and for whatever reason, one possible one we've been discussing above, they don't want to go after the Citadel immediately) and they do move a bit faster but they still seem eager to maintain control, once established. This does kinda fit with the reaper's arrogant and superiority-complex like attitude that we've gotten to know from Sovereign and Harbinger though.

And they can afford it as well. I mean, until the crucible shows up at earth, there really isn't that much for them to worry about as far as the war is concerned. I think the turians managed to destroy one reaper capital ship in the miracle of Palaven with some daring tactics and a lot of luck. Oh and don't some resistance folks manage to blow another one up by smuggling nukes inside or something? A few more get damaged, I think but otherwise, it's only smaller reaper craft like destroyers and the expendable ground troops that are effectively even being fought.

So if they lost 3 capitals (including Sovereign) in this cycle, that's probably a major disaster within their history (and they'd probably mostly attribute that to the prothean meddling, without which none of this would have happened) but it's not like they are ever in a position where they'd have to worry about serious losses by employing the tactics that they do.

1. So? What's the harm in that? In a way, it's still extrapolating because otherwise, as you say, it wouldn't fit.

2. Again, space is big and with FTL travel and tracking being what it is, you can make a small force last quite some time. Given that the reapers themselves don't seem to be too worried about fighting this was super efficiently (see my response to alcean above), Once they do decide to go after a planet, they seem to just curb stomp it's major defences in a matter of hours, as we see it happen on Earth, Palaven and Thessia, which must be the most heavily defended worlds in the galaxy. So it's not like the game doesn't establish their might. I can see it just work out that way under the right circumstances. I mean, in the end, it is what it is.

@upagain : If the keepers would have "worked", the citadel itself would have become a relay. At that point, the arms would possibly have been locked open and also, the reapers would probably have emerged right on top of the tower or something. So in that scenario, the issue of attacking the station from the outside by coming through the other relays and then flying over would not have occured.

Vigil describes the Citadel as the hub of the relay network because, yes, it has a fairly central location but also because it was able to control the network. None of this means that there need be direct connection to everywhere. In fact, both the galaxy map as well as descriptions in the novels (talking about several relay jumps to reach it) imply that the Citadel does not connect to everywhere. And no, the reapers cannot take a special short cut. This is explicitly mentioned in Arrival. They wanted to use the Alpha Relay (the Bahak Relay), because it was special in that it would have directly connected to the Citadel. Both Dr. Kenson and the Codex mention this.

As far as the Cerberus Coup is concerned, they had their insiders, The dudes in C-Sec and frigging Udina and even during their coup, they never got to the tower in force, so if the reapers (who probably didn't have inside people that high up at that point) tried that, they might also have failed. Also, I will say that the coup isn't exactly regarded as a high point in ME3 writing either.

As forVigil's comments on stripping recources, I always interpreted that as stripping them from those planets occupied by the protheans (or any harvested civilizations) and possibly also meaning "their resources", not necessarily strip mining the entire planet. Anything else wouldn't make sense as you say. I mean, even Therum, which had a prothean outpost is still a mining colony these days. The reaper's don't seem to have been as thorough as Vigil seems to think anyway. Just look at Feros, they basically left the entire city around Zhu's Hope standing. Remember that Vigil only has knowladge of what the Illos team observed and deducted/speculated on (he even mentions this, I think). He is not a 100% reliable source.

1. Again, I don't see the harm.

2. Yes but see my edit above in response to @uoagain . The reapers were also pretty sloppy in past cycles, actually, Vigil does not have to be an entirely reliable source and cutting off worlds is something they kinda got "for free" when they came through the Citadel. They never really had to do it "manually" as they do now. So there really not much precedent that should give us expectations.

Yea, I guess it's never really explained why the relay network is built as is. It might make sense in that the reapers might want one primary species to come out each cycle (remember how they keep saying in ME3 that our diversity is one of our strengths). Making the station easier to access for one race over others might help with that. Who knows, they might even relocate the Citadel if needed to "set up" the new cycle. Though I'd have to admit, it wouldn't have been very smart to set it up for the asari this time, since their mating habits and mind set kinda proliferated our diversity. But then, maybe they try to experiment and try different things each cycle? Who knows. As Mac Walters would say "plenty of speculation for everyone". I wouldn't consider it plot hole, just something that remained rather vague.

And don't get me wrong. I also think hitting the Citadel first would - on first glance - be the correct tactical move. Again, I am just trying to come up with a reasonable explanation for why they didn't, assuming they are very intelligent. Granted, my explanation takes 3 or 4 steps, but I still think it works.

As for the opening issue. I agree with you on all of the facts but I don't agree that it was a dumb setup to begin with. Quite the opposite. When I first heard Vigil's dialogue in 2008, I thought it was an ingenious and really creative idea and setup. I didn't think it was dumb at all. Why not? Because it never even occurred to me that the Citadel relay would be the reaper's only way to get back into the Milky Way. I mean, that would be really, really dumb. It was very clear to me that they had other means of getting to us. The Citadel Relay is just their plan A, their preferred strategy and you have to admit, if it isn't screwed up, it is a good one. I also think ME1 implies that there must be a plan B already. Shepard's last words are "The reapers are coming and I will find a way to stop them". So clearly, Shepard thought - as I did - that they have another way in. At the time, we had no idea how long it would take them or what shape the plan B of theirs would take but it was pretty clear that there must be one.

In fact, while playing ME2 and before finishing it, I was convinced that the missing Terminus colonists are abducted to serve as some sort of slave labor force or fuel or whatever beyond the Omega 5 relay to build a new relay that can connect to dark space. The only thing that didn't make sense to me is why they'd only take humans. Well, when Baby Terminator showed up in the end, that question was answered.

Ultimately though, ME2 and Arrival did the job in the end and did show that the reapers had a pretty decent backup plan, even if it was just "flying in", duh! But at least they still had the Alpha Relay scheme going.

And I agree that it was rather weird that in ME3 then, they abandoned the Citadel there for a couple of months but hey, as I said, I can work with it, I understand why - in order to build a nice galaxy spanning narrative for the game - it was ultimately necessary to keep the relays open and why it was better to keep the iconic Citadel as hub for the player and IMO ME3 has far more drastic story issues elsewhere. So is it great? Hell no, but at least in this instance, I get why it is what it is and I can muster enough suspension of disbelief and employ enough reasoning (a bit convoluted, I grant you) to make it work.