Well, we did know it was a systemic mass extinction. I'm pretty sure it is Tali who calls it "Harvesting" after speaking with Sovereign on Vermire. What we didn't know is WHY. Why would this race of super-machines just go into the black, wait for life to evolve, then kill it again. Why let it grow in the first place?

Here was the answer... that is their reproductive cycle.



Maybe I am just really good at suspense of disbelief, but this was pretty easy for me to deal with. For starters, the reveal here is that, contrary to what ME1 led us to believe, Reapers are not AI, but rather some kind of biological equivalent of the Dyson Sphere that Legion talks about, taking the collective consciousness of a species as well as their genetic markers and distilling it.

How do they achieve that with the Goop? No idea. I actually like that they didn't try to explain how it worked. I was too busy trying to blow the place up to ask too many questions.



I still think you are looking at that process wrong. I don't think that the Reapers are designed, but rather grow following the base DNA used to make them. A Reaper is not a super-machine. It is, for lack of a better word, a species Cyborg, the biological sum of a species augmented with highly advanced technology.

Also, You are correct in that this removes some of the awe of the Reapers, but this is important, storywise. In the first game, the Reapers are an unstoppable army, and the Citadel Relay has to be kept closed or game over. It took most of the military strength of the Citadel just to stop Sovereign.

However, it is now clear that the Reapers, as a group, will eventually have to be dealt with. They can't just be an invincible God fleet or the series end would be the biggest let down of all time. We now know where they come from, why they are made, and why they perpetuate the Extinction cycle. Now we have seen where they come from, and what they are. So they can be beaten... it's just gonna be really, really hard.