[SPOILERS] The Truth About Reapers

[Lemurian1972]

This may be obvious to most people, but it hit me the other day and now my entire interpretation of this aspect of the game has taken a dark turn.

It's made clear from the beginning that Reapers eat aliens. The head roasting on a spit in their intro scene, their default bios mention it, and I think even Volk makes a couple random comments on it.

But here's the thing. When you discover that nearly all alien troops are essentially humans with alien bits grafted on, there's no moment among Reapers equivalent to "omg Soylent Green is people!" in fact I seem to remember another Volk comment that makes it sound like they pretty much knew all along, and X-Com is just now catching on.

That means the Reapers are GMO CANNIBALS, AND THEY LIKE IT.

I know in a meta game sense the reason they don't address it is all the factions are under-written, but I have to take the game as it is given to me, and this is the only conclusion I can come to.

So for me this changes how I looked at everything they told us, and their goals.

All we really know about the Lost is from them, even Tygan can't figure them out based on what he's told by the Reapers. Yet the Reapers manage to survive and thrive in infested cities, while ADVENT and X-Com and Resistance alike are prey. There's got to be more to it than just being able to sneak real good.

Their whole desire to come in from the cold and go back to cities takes on a more sinister tone as well. That final shot of them de cloaking and walking toward a city could be a peaceful reunion, or it could be the start of a new invasion, where Reapers keep people as a food source.

And lastly speaking of food sources, what about ADVENT burgers? Does this mean everyone who lived in cities and ate became addicted to them (Tygan included) is on some level a cannibal? They make it abundantly clear no one knows where the meat for them comes from, and they idea that they have an independent genetic production pipeline for non-human based meat doesn't seem like something the Elders would bother with when they could just lie.

So yeah, I don't entirely trust the Reapers anymore, can you blame me? :)

[licker34]

Just so long as they aren't inviting you to a BBQ I don't see a problem.

[Bryan=0101]

Yes, we have no proof that they eat humoid aliens. Infact if they did the skirmishers would know about as many of them weere once advent soldiers.

Mox has killed many repears and attacked many camps he would clearly have found out during such attacks.

Note when I say humoid I'm refering to advent not things like sectoids tho I doubt they eat them too. As for the cities the repears are great at hiding.

In the opening scene outrider says your presence distrub them. Repear being the master of stealth do not alert them.

[Lemurian1972]

Volk keeps a Sectoid head on his wall. I'm certain even if they don't eat ADVENT troops, they go after Sectoids, Mutons, and Vipers, all of which Tygan made clear are modified humans.

[Darkrage_nl]

Actually he says they are modified with human dna .

So they are aliens with a little bit of human in them. The xcom 1 versions were those without human dna

[AlexMBrennan]

Sectoids, Mutons, and Vipers, all of which Tygan made clear are modified humans.

Well, if you are gonna make up nonsense then you are wrong - Q literally shows up at the end and tells the Commander that Reapers exclusively eat berserkers.

[Bryan=0101]

Originally posted by Lemurian1972:

Volk keeps a Sectoid head on his wall. I'm certain even if they don't eat ADVENT troops, they go after Sectoids, Mutons, and Vipers, all of which Tygan made clear are modified humans.

Originally posted by Darkrage_nl:

Actually he says they are modified with human dna .

So they are aliens with a little bit of human in them. The xcom 1 versions were those without human Dan.

As stated above they are aliens with human dna injected into them. Humans share a lot of dna with a banana if we are truly using this logic that eating aleisn are the same than as eating humans due to them having human dna then would eating a banana count then?

[Tenshin51]

I am guessing Reaper live in infested lost area instead of scavenging for food they killed aliens for food. Eating aliens somehow makes them invisible to alien sensory until Reaper show themselves or been reveal visually.

Then the Skirmisher are group of advent hunting the reaper until Bradford rescue the commander . Giving the skirmisher free will.

[Rez Elwin]

We keep aliens on our wall too though. Could just be a trophy, as for them eating aliens we only see the one example, which is a Chryssalid IIRC, which are not modified with Human DNA.

Also Vipers are not modified at all, they used a fake "thin man" body but they have no human DNA. So if they eat Vipers and Chrysalids that's not too weird, just be like today where people eat bugs and snakes.

Anything is better than eating a Lost though, they live in that city after all, no burger stands nearby.

[R2_Opus2]

Overall I'm curious what the long term affects with eating aliens from another dimension are. It can't be good right? I don't care if it tastes like chicken too, I ain't eatin' it! would be my reaction.

I see all that oozing boiling yellow blood coming out of some of them. At the very least expect acid reflux.

[Lemurian1972]

Originally posted by 101=5, bryan=5:

Originally posted by Lemurian1972:

Volk keeps a Sectoid head on his wall. I'm certain even if they don't eat ADVENT troops, they go after Sectoids, Mutons, and Vipers, all of which Tygan made clear are modified humans.

Originally posted by Darkrage_nl:

Actually he says they are modified with human dna .

So they are aliens with a little bit of human in them. The xcom 1 versions were those without human Dan.

As stated above they are aliens with human dna injected into them. Humans share a lot of dna with a banana if we are truly using this logic that eating aleisn are the same than as eating humans due to them having human dna then would eating a banana count then?

From the Stasis Suit cutscene in the Shadow Chamber:

Tygan- "Each Soldier posesses a unique genetic code predominantly human of course, but with some fragments left open."

Bradford- "Left open for what?"

T- "Whatever alien DNA ADVENT wishes to insert. Sectoid, Muton, even the species our soldiers refer to as 'Berserker' In all cases, human genetic material serves as a bonding agent, holding the strands together."

B- "Human material, you mean the stuff we found at the Black site facility."

T- "Precisely, the key component in their soldier manufacturing process."

B- "So we've been fighting ourselves this entire time..."



I'm not making this stuff up, I checked on my playthrough before I posted. The things we fight are mostly human. The things Reapers eat are mostly human. Not DNA sequences common to all life on Earth, DNA sequences and structure specific to humans, with bits of alien DNA mixed in.

[Malidictus]

ADVENT are not humans. They're manufactured life forms primarily based on the human genome, but with significant alterations. They're not "just mutated people."

Moreover, cannibalism is a social taboo which typically comes with a lot of baggage like it does here. If a person is a cannibal, then surely they must be bestial in nature and truly evil. They probably farm people to kill and eat (because that's a lot worse than farming animals to kill and eat) and go rading other people's villages to kill and eat them. Near as I can tell, it's a colonial stereotype.

People - rational, regular people - have resorted to cannibalism all throughout history, typically in situations of extreme lack of resources, such as emergencies. The myth is that they end up addicted to the taste of human flesh and start craving it like a drug, which I don't think there exists any real evidence for. The Reapers are no different.

Earth's ecosystem has been thoroughly ♥♥♥♥♥♥, not to put too fine a point on it. There isn't going to be any farming or animal husbandry going on for quite some time. Not like a group of enemies of the state would really have the opportunity to keep cattle or grow crops anyway. Since they live in the ruins of the old cities, Reapers survive on the only thing one can find in the old cities that's edible - aliens, monsters and yes, potentially other people. You do what you have to in order to survive. Doesn't mean you'd shun civillised, free society with easy access to food rations in order to keep eating other people.

The Resistance factions are all fairly shallow, with the logistics of their survival not very well-explained. Hell, XCOM's logistics aren't very well-explained, either. We know that our resistance network is what keeps us stocked with "supplies," presumably some of that being food which they got from... Somewhere. That's the problem with bringing up cannibalism - you open the question of food supplies in general, and it's not easy to answer in a lot of cases. Where do Resistance Havens get their food from? What about the Skirmishers or the Templars? What do people in the Cities eat with no agriculture of any kind?

Point is, I think you're reading a bit too much into an undercooked story... Pun not intended.

[XeidiDent]

They eat Aliens, not ADVENT, as far as I know. And Aliens are not ADVENT.

[Darkrage_nl]

Originally posted by Lemurian1972:

Originally posted by 101=5, bryan=5:

As stated above they are aliens with human dna injected into them. Humans share a lot of dna with a banana if we are truly using this logic that eating aleisn are the same than as eating humans due to them having human dna then would eating a banana count then?

From the Stasis Suit cutscene in the Shadow Chamber:

Tygan- "Each Soldier posesses a unique genetic code predominantly human of course, but with some fragments left open."

Bradford- "Left open for what?"

T- "Whatever alien DNA ADVENT wishes to insert. Sectoid, Muton, even the species our soldiers refer to as 'Berserker' In all cases, human genetic material serves as a bonding agent, holding the strands together."

B- "Human material, you mean the stuff we found at the Black site facility."

T- "Precisely, the key component in their soldier manufacturing process."

B- "So we've been fighting ourselves this entire time..."



I'm not making this stuff up, I checked on my playthrough before I posted. The things we fight are mostly human. The things Reapers eat are mostly human. Not DNA sequences common to all life on Earth, DNA sequences and structure specific to humans, with bits of alien DNA mixed in.

He is talking about advent soldiers there. Advent are hybrids. Predominantly (mostly) human with alien dna.

[Malidictus]

Originally posted by Darkrage_nl:

He is talking about advent soldiers there. Advent are hybrids. Predominantly (mostly) human with alien dna.

You can describe chimpanzees the same way. Moreover, ADVENT soldiers are grown in vats, as we see in the Forge Facility.

[That Drunk Fellow]

Originally posted by Lemurian1972:

From the Stasis Suit cutscene in the Shadow Chamber:

Tygan- "Each Soldier posesses a unique genetic code predominantly human of course, but with some fragments left open."

Bradford- "Left open for what?"

T- "Whatever alien DNA ADVENT wishes to insert. Sectoid, Muton, even the species our soldiers refer to as 'Berserker' In all cases, human genetic material serves as a bonding agent, holding the strands together."

B- "Human material, you mean the stuff we found at the Black site facility."

T- "Precisely, the key component in their soldier manufacturing process."

B- "So we've been fighting ourselves this entire time..."



I'm not making this stuff up, I checked on my playthrough before I posted. The things we fight are mostly human. The things Reapers eat are mostly human. Not DNA sequences common to all life on Earth, DNA sequences and structure specific to humans, with bits of alien DNA mixed in.

This is open to a degree of interpretation, on one hand you could be right in your interpretation.
However more likely is that the different types of advent troops are using different types of alien DNA, to enhance them for specific purposes.
That at least has always been my interpretation of this particular conversation.