How to change Reapers for a remake

A few years ago I made a thread regarding some fixes for Mass Effect in general, things like how to integrate overheat weapon system with thermal clips, removal of Bikini costumes as armor for female characters and some other stuff. I thought now why not change the plot a bit in order to make the game flow a bit better. It's just a personal idea thread, not a request for Bioware to change something or some kind of grand proclamation to the world.




In Mass Effect Reapers are a relatively typical crazy machine race hellbent on exterminating organics for the sake of some great, unknowable goal that in the end turns out knowable and underwhelming. How would I change them up? When I first played Mass Effect 13 or so years ago the encounter with sovereign made an impression on me of Reapers as a primeval, originally organic race that has reached the apex of organic life but resolved the limitations of it, such as death and aging by "evolving" and uploading themselves into a Matrioshka brain. For those unaware a Matrioshka brain is a sfi-fi megastructure based around a Dyson sphere and using said energy for immense computational capabilities. By uploading themselves and their consciousness into it they are able to, for all intents and purposes become a God of their own world, universe and space. There is no hunger, no boredom, no death, no pain. Each person a "nation", independent of all weakness, capable of experiencing everything thanks to the immense computational power provided by the structure itself. Yet that leaves them at a disadvantage. The entire race is uploaded into a singular location, but is ultimately at the mercy of universe at large. With billions and billions of years to go the only threat to paradise they created comes from other alien races, who over galactic timescales will inevitably attack them if left to their own devices. Please note, since the inevitability of war seems to be a pet peeve for many in regards to organic-synthethic conflict that we are talking about immense timescales. "Just" 90 million years ago most of Europe was underwater, Africa and South America just split off from each other and North America was floating around in two parts. Just 75 years ago Germany waged war on the world as a whole and yet now is one of the best allies of United States. Same with Japan and others. Peace can be made, war can be waged, and there is no guarantee that allies of today will stay as such in mere centuries, nevermind millions of years to come. It is a risk and cost Reapers cannot afford. Ergo, they devised the "harvest' - a 50 000 year cycle in which advanced civilizations are culled and eradicated, and their technological progress collected and added to reapers own, while others are allowed to take their place and develop technology, thus giving reapers both security and scientific perspective of entire civilizations as alternative to their own, thus preventing stagnation.

I'd put Reaper "Homeworld" at the black hole in the center of our galaxy, uploaded to a matrioshka brain ringworld, using the gravitational ability of black holes to slow down time for themselves, thus allowing them to experience a thousand years in a time it takes us to experience one. This would give them advantage in conventional warfare that is simply impossible to overcome, thus justifying the entire "Reapers can't be defeated conventionally" narrative, created in the trilogy but never really explored in detail.

I'll add more when I think of it. 



I'd keep the Mass Effect 1 storyline as much as possible with the difference of course being the Reapers "sleeping" in their matrioshka brain rather than dark space between galaxies. The citadel is still a chief Mass Relay allowing for instant and decapitating strike on the center of galacting government and thus of great interest to Reapers to keep open, but ultimately not the end all be all for their ability to come and Harvest. Stopping them from using it simply means buying several years for the galaxy as they travel at regular FTL speeds from the galactic core. 

What I would change however is Reapers method of attacking planets, the citadel and fighting in space. In Space to Space combat instead of firing superheated metal they should use direct energy weaponry, plasma or dark energy arrays. It would explain their ability to destroy ships with ease much better than simple heated Iron and Tungsten. There is no defense for it.

For Planets however I'd make the biggest change. Instead of stomping around and occasionally firing their laser beams the Reapers launch themselves at extreme speeds into the planets surface, embedding themselves deep underground, followed by releasing massive swarms of nanites that disassemble and gather every organic particle on the planet. The "Grey Goo" spreads like a flood, there is no fighting it, no holding it back, it eats and consumes everything, from viruses and bacteria to animals of every kind. Oceans are depleted of life, every tree and strand of grass eaten. A Reaper on a planet means the death of the planet itself. The scene from Collector base repeated in large as Asari, Humans and Turians are disolved in seconds. What remains is grey nanite-organic sludge that is later sucked up into the sky trough massive tendrils and sent for processing. There are no concentration camps organized by Husks and watched over by Mauraders as people go on living their life more or less the same as before Reapers as population is processed.