The Crucible

The Crucible

 

The Crucible is an ancient organic solution to the Harvest, and easily the most controversial. Its design is not complex, and its application is crude. At its most basic level it is a blunt tool for a blunt purpose: it stuns Reapers. Further refinement of the Crucible does not change its application, merely restricts the scope of its effects. The Crucible requires organics to be willing to part from the mass effect technology that is their first and last defense against the Reapers – an ironic notion considering that the Reapers instigate organic reliance on mass effect technology.

 

Origins

 

The exact date for creation of the concept of the Crucible is not known. The Prothean scientists discussed the concept of the Crucible on Ilos, before leaving for the Citadel through their own mass relay. Pashek Vran, the only Prothean scientist known by name, found the plans while digging through government records after the collapse of the empire, before coming to Ilos. These plans belonged to the species of the cycle prior to the Prothean empire, and were locked away because, at the time of their discovery, the Protheans did not believe in the Reaper plot. Vran believed them to be 100,000 years old at least.

 

After creating a rudimentary starship aboard the Citadel (with the help of the keepers) the science team hid the plans for the Crucible in a V.I on Klencory. They then repurposed their other V.I systems to contain pieces of the Crucible's plans, and hid them on different planets. Through the decades that followed their escape from Ilos, Vran's team began to die off. Finally, all who was left was Vran and his wife. They were old and frail. Fearing that they had been spotted by Collectors during their research, the two Protheans knew that they did not have much time left to give future civilizations a chance. Vran's wife volunteered to take Crucible plans alone to Mars in their only starship. Vran reluctantly agreed. After exiting the mass effect corridor into the Sol system, She bombarded the Charon relay with cryo torpedos, freezing it. Vran remained on the Citadel to corupt the keeper signals, and guard the final V.I system. Depressed over the seperation from his wife, Vran decided not to enter his cryo tube and died.

 

Sovereign's crypticism

 

Liara notes that Sovereign, in its supreme arrogance and confidence, gave Shepard insight on who the Reapers are and how they can be defeated. On Virmire the Reaper mocked Shepard, believing itself so far above organic life that even a cryptic explaination of its purpose and weaknesses were beyond the understanding or application of organics. The Prothean V.I.s and Crucible design, along with the findings of Prothean-Collector-Reaper relations from the Suicide Mission illuminate the significance behind Sovereign's words.

 

“We are each a nation, independent, free of all weakness.”

 

One of the simpler mysteries of the Reapers is that each ship is actually comprised of millions of organic minds. Legion was the first to explain this to Shepard, though at the time not even the geth understood the scope of Sovereign's statement. Each Reaper is comprised of an organic nation-race of minds. The unity and decisiveness of these minds makes their resolve nearly indestructible.

 

“We are eternal; the pinnacle of evolution and existence...we are the end of everything.”

 

This statement refers to Reaper-perspective on their own self worth. The Reapers do not see the cycle as a war but instead as a simple harvest of advanced organic life. Reapers harvest one species that is unique enough to be cultivated (while species seen as historically “redundent” are killed off). This race is then turned into the pinnacle of evolution and existence: non-organic entities. Reapers see this transformation as being the route that all higher functioning organics in existence will eventually aspire to. Reapers see technology as being one aspect of a species natural evolution.

 

“There is a realm of existence so far beyond your own you cannot even imagine it... You cannot even grasp the nature of our existence. We have no beginning. We have no end. We are infinite.”

 

The geth and EDI speculated that Reapers contain millions of organic minds inside a Reaper core, which then acts as a super server for bio-synthetic consciousness. When harvesting organics, a Reaper core uploads a momentary imprint of an organic's mind via a complete and highly advanced flash scan of organic's brain. Without an organic knowing it, the Reaper technology has made a copy of their personality, memories, patterns, even emotions – a cloned mind without a body.

 

Organic bodies are melted down and destroyed, and the organic dies. Genetic material is extracted from the organic's corpse, and is recorded and manipulated to create the shell of a Reaper core. This explained how the researches at Dis could tell that the Reaper was partly organic in construction.

 

The cloned minds (consisting of perspectives, memories, patterns, etc) are combined and recombined thousands of times with the other cloned minds. This [allegedly] creates new minds to inhabit a Reaper. Records of DNA structures and codon combinations assist the Reapers in creating minds. The more organics are harvested the more combinations happen, and more new minds are created. As such, a Reaper is comprised of millions of newly created organic minds.

 

But where are these new minds uploaded? Not to the Reaper core as EDI and the geth anticipated. Instead these minds occupy concentrated dark energy. When Sovereign said that Shepard could not understand Reaper existence, it was refering to this fact. Not only are minds within the Reaper made to see and feel each other's perspectives (sans skin color, sexuality, religion, etc to blind them) and be united in harmony, but they exist within the realm of pure (dark) energy.

 

In the end the Reapers are as much machines as humans are water and organs. Reapers are millions of harmonized organic minds that exist in energy, from which they cannot be truly destroyed. The Reaper core merely acts as a magnetic force, maintaining the Reaper consciousness within concentrated dark energy from dissolving into the dark energy that makes up the rest of the universe.

 

What does any of that have to do with the Crucible?

 

As stated before, Sovereign unwittingly gave Shepard and the geth the key to Reaper weakness when it exposed itself to communication.

 

“Your civilization is based upon the technology of the mass relays, our technology. By using it your society develops along the paths we desire.”

 

The key to defeating the Reapers was discovered by the true geth when they first contacted Sovereign. The key to defeating the Reapers is to depart from the paths they have laid out for organic civilizations, and act in a way that cannot be anticipated. The true essense of Reapers exist in dark energy, which is also the basis for nearly all their technology and the technology of all space faring races.

 

For the geth, creating alternative forms of technology seperate from mass effect technology was both how they would distinguish themselves from the heretics and organics, and their best line of defense against the Reapers. The geth's solution was the construction of the Geth Sphere, also known as Homeworld, which would represent a departure from dark-energy based technology (even though the megastructure's temporary core is made of eezo).

 

For the organics that pre-dated the Protheans, a forced seperation from mass effect technology was the only conceivable way to defeat the Reapers. 100,000 years ago the solution was the construction of a device that would dissipate concentrated amounts dark energy, the stuff that powered mass effect drive cores, mass effect weapons, and maintained Reaper consciousness. For the race that pre-dated the Protheans this solution was known as a crucible that they themselves could never come to, because the mass relay network was already seized by the Old Machines. They were so dependant on the Reaper technology that risking destroying their remaining mass effect technologies would only hasten their defeat. The Protheans too lost the Citadel in their cycle, but were so advanced in cybernetic and telepathic technologies that the Reapers were unable to harvest their minds successfully. The sacrifices made by these older organic races allowed the relay system to be maintained by organics in Shepard's cycle. Control of the relay system grants Shepard and company a way to deliver the Crucible to a warzone, and use it to combat the Reapers.

 

The Crucible is designed to dissipate concentrated dark energy signatures. In its most crude form the Crucible would completely shut down fleets, dismantle quantum entanglement communications, and even shut down mass relays. Thanks to the efforts of Pashek Vran, the Prothean V.Is scattered around the galaxy have been uploaded with the necessary data and computing power to harness some of the power of the Crucible, making it a more directed tool, albeit still unstable. Utilizing these V.Is would allow the Crucible to dissipate the dark energy of only the most concentrated dark energy signatures – the Reapers and large ships – while leaving lesser ships, small arms, and biotics free from any effects. The more V.Is the Crucible has, the more stable the tool will be in stunning the Reapers.

 

The limitations of the Crucible

 

“One ship. One will. Many minds...” – Legion

 

As mentioned above, the Crucible only stuns the Reapers by dissipating the dark energy that contains Reaper consciousness. The will power of a Reaper is largely constrolled by the core. The core acts as a will without a conscious; a Reaper's purely instinctual defense mechanism to ensure preservation. As long as the Core remains intact the dissipated Reaper consciousness can always reconverge, although it will take time. The more advanced the Crucible is (via the Prothean V.Is), the longer it will take for the Reapers to regain consciousness.

 

[Note: In ME2 Shepard explored the remains of a Reaper's corpse. Despite being inactive for 37 million years the Reaper was still able to murder a Cerberus science team via indoctrination. This is because the Reaper's shell (the ship) was destroyed by the Klendagon weapon, but the core remained partially intact. This Reaper remained active for millions of years with a faulty core, unable to gain enough consciousness to contact Harbinger or Sovereign, but with enough mental power to affect those who entered it. When Shepard further damaged the ship's drive core (seperate from the Reaper core) the starship fell into the crushing gravity of the brown dwarf and was effectively destroyed.]

 

The Crucible's unstable nature suggests its users to utilize the Prothean V.Is. The alternative is to create the most basic Crucible model, sans numerous V.Is, to stun Reapers and organic mass effect technologies, and risk the reactivation of their own ships before the Reapers reawaken. While the alternative option is faster to build, it would not give the galaxy enough time to gather together a sizable fleet to follow the Crucible and destroy all of the stunned Old Machines.

 

The Crucible is not a weapon. It does not destroy the Reapers. The Crucible requires a fleet to track its trajectory to an activation point, wait for its activation, then have that fleet launch themselves to the place where the Crucible was activated and assault the stunned Reapers. These fleets would have to take out as many stunned Reapers are possible during this initial launch, while their own ships remained free from the effects of the Crucible. Afterwards, the Crucible can continue to pulse every few minutes, dissipating the dark energy in that region of space. Ships launched from the initial first wave of attack would be at risk of being caught by the Crucible's continued activity.

 

Furthermore, the Crucible is largely defenseless. It has some AA guns to fend away Reaper drones, but larger cannons or javelin missile tubes were deemed too risky to place on the structure. They could become volatile targets. As such, the Crucible requires a fleet to protect itself, though its initial launch to Earth or the Citadel will leave it completely exposed and alone.

 

In short, the Crucible is only one key part of defeating the Reapers. It requires Prothean V.Is to stabilize its dark energy disruptor abilities. After the Crucible's first detonation, fleets would need to follow it and attack stunned Reapers. Fleets would also be required to protect the Crucible at all times.