Because Sovereign didn’t emote, you couldn’t irritate him, you couldn’t frighten him, you couldn’t get him excited, nothing. Sovereign was truly a lovecraftian horror, an inhuman emotionless god. Harbinger could get irritated and excited, he felt more human, which in a rare case worked against his characterization.
@@cmdrtianyilin8107 I never said that they didn't use a voice actor for Sovereign's voice. Obviously they used a real human to record sovereign's lines, but they added filters/effects to the voice in order to change it into what we hear in-game (they did the same with Legion in ME2, just to an even greater extent). However, they didn't really do that with Harbinger, at least not to the same extent and that's why Sovereign sounds a lot more machine-like compared to Harbinger.
Tell me an antagonist that has a line that goes harder than "before us, you are nothing. Your extinction is inevitable" or "you exist because we allow it. And you will end because we demand it." That shit was terrifying because he wasn't bluffing at all.
The only thing I can think, from what I have know, is the Borg. "Existence as you know it is over. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile."
Yeah. I just love Sovreign's to the point, matter of fact tone. Unlike Harbinger who basically has no character and just taunts us throughout Mass Effect 2.
Awesome voice acting/editing as well, that is what drives it home for me. But I have some: Ragnaros - World of WarCraft The Lich King - WoW too ... Okey let's pick just one more from WoW, because there are way too many that have really good hypetrain lines. I'm going to go with...The Eredar Twins Outside of WoW I can also say a few that did a good job, let's see: Thaos ix Arkannon - Pillars of Eternity The entire plot was really amazing there and he is an excellent villain. Interestingly I would like to add characters from Fromsoft games, but I can't. There isn't much acting in those games and 95% of all hype comes directly from the boss encounter.
Exactly. At first I thought it was just a clichéd game of "bad guy goes rogue and wants to take over." Soon as I heard this speech I knew the game would have a great storyline.
@@shlomorothstein9691 It's probably one of the most impressive scenaristic surprise in a video game. You play like most of the game fighting a rogue special force soldier having delusions of grandeur and having weird ambitions of bringing back the Reapers that are vaguely described up that point. And then suddenly, Saren is neither the main villain or trully an actual villain, just a puppet of an incredibly frightening lovecraftian mechanical being of incredible power that is just the vanguard of an overwhelming force. And this was all done with incredible skill.
Perfect sci-fi horror moment. You're a citadel agent stumbling around when suddenly you get to talk to some random red AI. You start asking it questions like any other inane console or computer. Then it starts talking, and the answers are more and more terrifying.
This is one of my favourite moments in gaming history. The way Sovereign talks blew me away back in 2007. I’ve replayed this scene so many times I lost count. Seeing this scene remastered with FemShep is gaming at its best!
care little for femshep but i have to admit that this scene made lasting impression that voice these words the culmination for all of that searching for answers despite of not being actual boss or even great mastermind worthy of chase ... sovereign became impressive icon for entire game and it sucks that there was no other effort to make reapers impressive
Sovereign speech is probably the best villain exposition that has ever been done in history of gaming. Everything about it is excellent and gives me goosebumps. First, its emotionless deep robotic voice is absolutely chilling. Second, the sentences wording is carefully studied to give an impression of linguistic sophistication without making him overly poetic like a more aristocratic villain would sound like. His words are the ones of a very knowledgeable machine using words with surgical precision and calculated to make the most intimidating and despairing effect on Shepard's group. Third, Sovereign build up his exposition to create the impression that countless of stronger civilisations fell to them and we're just one of many who inevitably fall violently. All resistance is useless and we will be crushed like insects. He shows the contempt toward us that we have against rats and other vermin. Furthermore, at the very begining, he clearly states that trying to understand the Reapers or their goals is absolutely impossible to us and not even worth trying. And interestingly, he tells us just enough to be terrified, but only gives us vague answers on what matters so that we can't use what he said against the Reapers. We don't know much more about them than before. The end result is that we get out of the conversation with the conviction that we're facing an unknowable species of lovecraftian mechanical horrors, so ancient and powerful that we might as well just leave ourselves to be destroyed without resistance. I remember getting out from that scene thorougly demoralised and hopeless. Not even the villains of Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, respectively Sarevok and Jon Irenicus, gave me that. What I experienced facing Sovereign there was absolutely unique in my long experience in RPGs and video games in general.
"Your civilization is based on the technology of the mass relays, our technology. By using it, your society develops along the paths we desire. We impose order on the chaos of organic evolution. You exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it." -- Sovereign, Mass Effect
@@PerfectAlibi1 According to what the Geth call Nazara; "I am beyond your comprehension; I am Sovereign!" There is the same situation with Harbingers name. Harbinger - "I am Harbinger." Leviathan - "YOU call it... Harbinger." Perhaps Nazara is the Geth (or more properly Quarian) word for sovereign. Although, I would assume that logically, each being would refer to itself by its true name, without deviation or translation.
Shepherd; there is a whole galaxy out there united against you! Sovereign: yeah, that’s what they said last time. And the time before that. And the time before that. I’m sure they’ll say it again next time too.
I love the new lighting and environmental detail in this room. It's such a small thing but to have Sovereign's hologram reflect off of Shepard's face is *such* a nice addition and makes the close-ups more menacing. This room might be my favourite remastered environment of the whole game. Which, considering Ilos exists, is impressive.
Yup, also the shot of the glass breaking while Sovereign taking off, is new, which I thought it was, so I check out the old version of it, found out that I was right.
As fun of an antagonist Harbinger was, with his endless shit talking every single time you run into him, it just doesn't even come within a ten mile radius of being as terrifying as Sovereign. Harbinger was almost a comic book or TV show villain, his taunting and sense or arrogance and the thought he's always going to win in the end. But Sovereign? He was a Lovecraftian nightmare, a being almost as old as life itself, each word was forward and direct and brutally honest. He says that you can never understand him, because he transcends understanding, no emotions or sense of pride, everything he said was lest a boast and more a statement of fact. A horrific truth that would drive most mad. And he just ends the conversation cause he knows it's pointless, in a hundred years or so everyone and everything will be dead regardless
"we are each a nation, free of every weakness. You can not even grasp the nature of our existence. We have no beginning, we have no end, we are infinite" GOD, I love this speech so much.
"You exist because we allow it. You will end because we demand it." The power behind this word is immeasurable. It isn't boasting or threatening. It is merely STATING of what is coming. Life itself has no chance against a foe like this
This scene absolutely made the Mass Effect series for me. The writing for this section of the game is some of the best I have ever witnessed in gaming history. The way Bioware trickled out little bits and pieces of the story hiding what Sovereign is was pure brilliance. This entire scene or planet was nothing short of breathtaking. We go planetside to stop Saren and the Geth. Saren has nowhere else to go and with the galaxy aligning against him, his defeat is all but assured. Sure he has a massive alien warship but against the entire fleet it would seem by this point it's only a matter of time before his reign of terror is over. Then...Sovereign reveals himself "We will blacken the skies with our numbers..." Addendum- I am not EA's biggest fan and have spoken out against them many times these past 4 years. Up until the release of the Mass Effect Legendary Edition I hadn't purchased one of their games in almost 5 years. I have even rallied to have their games pulled from store shelves and online markets. I wanted their games reclassified as AO+ for their insidious gambling mechanics that are designed to target children. However, this is one time where EA has done something very right. We (fiancee and I) not only picked up this trilogy on day one but we bought two copies. I am playing on our Series X while she is enjoying it on our PS5 *physical. I don't know if a trilogy remaster has the ability to win Game of The Year but if it can...this is my choice.
Something that isn't mentionned often enough in my opinion is how silences are carefully used in the course of Sovereign's exposition. It's like if Sovereign lets sink what he just said before starting up again to give time to maximise the effect of his intimidation attempts. It shows how subtle details like that can really change the emotional strength of a performance like this.
Something I believe needs more attention is the second line of Sovereign. "Rudimentary creatures of blood and flesh, you touch my mind, fumbling in ignorance, incapable of understanding." This one line has such an impact to the rest to the scene. The line tells us everything we need to know while telling us nothing at the same time. Absolutely brilliant. From the start of the conversation the player is now aware that the stakes are much dire than previously conceived, as the machine asserts it's dominance. Showing us how Sovereign sees itself, Reapers, and all organic life, before we even get the context of this sentence. However, its reason for its view or its motives remain a mystery to us, and still does at the end of the conversation. All we know for certain is that the future holds destruction. Everything after this line is building a stronger foundation to why Sovereign said that in the first place. Not to mention the delivery of the line is cold, emotionless, and devoid of sympathy, which for me meant Sovereign wasn't bluffing. It genuinely sees itself as something beyond organic life, and has demonstrated its superiority with a single line. To me this is when this game turned from a Sci-Fi rpg, to the Mass Effect we all know and love (with the exception of the very end).
While it is brilliantly delivered, Shodan is actually the one who says it first. "pathetic creature of blood and bone" i think she says. I love this speech. it is the best for me in any game. knowing what we know now though its slightly comical that this dude is flat lying in a bunch of stuff he says 🤣
It reminds me of the introduction of the Gravemind. "This one is machine and nerve, and has its mind concluded. This one is but flesh and faith, and is the more deluded."
Easily my favorite synthesized robotic voice ever. I just love listening to it. But the dialogue is also first rate. Truly a masterful delivery of his lines. It really does sell the idea that Sovereign is ultra intelligent and powerful compared to us pitiful, merely organic life forms. We must all become one with the Reapers......We must all subject to their will.....
And just think about how many cycles they've been doing this for. If one reaper is created for every civilization that is harvested. There has to be 1000s of reapers. So that's 1,000 reapers x 50,000 years per cycle = 50,000,000 years they've been around for. Nobody has been able to defeat them for at least 50,000,000 years. And the Leviathans are even older than them
you're off by an order of magnitude my guy, reapers are around a billion years old, to put it into perspective, when they first started harvesting, life on Earth was still unicellular and it would be over half a billion years till the first animals and plants started appearing.
@@Bartekkru100 In Leviathan DLC, we know from the Leviathan in ME3 that they created the Reapers about a billion years ago, which is about 20,000 cycles. In ME2, de IFF from the derelict reaper was 37 million years old.
When I played this back in early 2008, it blew my mind when I realized that Sovereign was an actual Reaper, especially because you see his actual form right at the beginning of Eden Prime. Yet as you learn more about them, you wonder what the Reapers actually look like aside from their indoctrinated Husks. Being threatened by a malevolent mechanical voice that reveals itself as the vanguard of destruction, I think it's my favourite ME moment as a whole.
3:39 Sovereign be like: "Dam, what a child... Why am I wasting my time on this? Time that could be used indoctrinating someone and harvesting the other. Peace!"
This is one of the best conversions in the entire series in my opinion because at this stage we know very little about the Reapers but Sovereign's voice has such absolute diabolical malice you can have not doubt about it's intentions even if it didn't say them.
It's really interesting coming back to look at this *after* ME3. The sheer ignorance of Sheppard and her team here around just what the Reapers ARE. With Sovereigns almost eye rolling as these ants before it boast that they have an entire Galaxy waiting for it, calling it a VI, thinking its a ship 'crewed' by Reapers that Saren found, that its totally impossible they could have been around when the Protheans were and that they are totally going to break these machines if they come for them! Confidence born of ignorance indeed. That was one of the great things about Mass Effect as the Reapers went from this mysterious force with a heroic defeat of them at the Citadel ... to the Galaxy map, just before Priority Earth with *every f*&king star system* across the entire Galaxy having a Reaper sitting on it to show how they have, despite all of our efforts and nominal victories, indeed covered the sky of every world and the only hope is a giant Hail-Mary untested superweapon that may or may not do a damn thing. And failure means that all this happens all over again in 50,000 years or so...
The cycle ends and another one begins When a cycle ends another reaper gets created decreasing the chance of the next cycle’s chance to defeating the reapers It is a continuous vicious cycle if not stopped
"You exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it." That's what EA tells a studio they create or acquire, before one day shutting them down.
I'd pay good money for a series where Caboose gets placed in different video game franchises as the protagonist. If only Joel Heyman hadn't basically disappeared from the entertainment world.
Man. After Joker talks about Sovereign "moving your way" , it'd be amazingly epic if you got to see Sovereign descending down on Virmire. Instead of having to sacrifice a squadmate to hold off the Geth, it'd be so cool to have to choose which squadmate dies because of Sovereign decimating everything from orbit and it getting worse as Sovereign got closer. It'd really sell the epicness of the reapers due to it being the one situation in the entire game where one of your squadmates is 100% guaranteed to die due to a close call with just the ONE reaper. Would have been incredible.
That would've been sick, but they probably would've had trouble doing it justice with the time, budget, and tech of the time. Notice how you only see Sovereign in cutscenes and once as a texture in the skybox. I have a feeling that that was largely for technical reasons.
My favourite part is "You civilisation is based on the technology of the mass relays. Our technology. By using it, your society develops along the paths we desire." That's the line that really makes clear the magnitude of what Shepherd's up against - the Reapers laid a trap older than our species, and like every civilisation before us, we've fallen into it, shaping ourselves into a perfect target before the war even starts.
This is one of the best horror twists (or culminations?) in sci-fi. Suddenly, the missing races you've heard about, that Liara is obsessed with, their sudden disappearances, the fact the Citadel and relays are gold mines of technology yet left abandoned, it all snaps into focus. The GENIUS of leaving technological breadcrumbs to softly guide the next cycle to utterly rely on the relays, to ensure the cycle doesn't invent something totally new... Whoever at BioWare thought that up was brilliant. It gives the entire game a "6th Sense" quality, where you have to play it a second time, knowing the reveal, to see all the setup that was RIGHT THERE but you didn't see it for what it was. It's something few "mysteries" in fiction manage to do properly but Mass Effect 1 absolutely smashed it.
His dialogue had weight. Made it clear just how insignificant you are to him. Harbinger, by comparison, only regurgitated clichés without meaning. Sometimes, I think Sovereign should have been the leader.
We impose order on the chaos of organic evolution. You exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it. Goddamn chills down my spine almost 14 years after experiencing it for the first time.
Starting to think Peter Jessop is a seriously underrated VA. Recently played fallout 4 and loved his performance as Paladin Danse. Especially in that showdown with Maxson in Blind Betrayal.
Such an amazing introduction to the antagonist race of the entire series, made a fool by the sheer existence of Mass Effect 3's story. No beginning? Infinite existence? So much for that, here are the leviathans and the god child.
Fun fact: Peter Jessop, aside from voicing Sovereign and other bunch of NPCs in Mass Effect 1 and Dragon Age Origins, also voices Miraak in the Dragonborn DLC of Skyrim.
This scene always gives me shivers. Something that is beyond simple fear. A creature that doesn't care. I wish they make an old script, when Reapers were trying to stop stars from dying. I don't like this stupidity with 'sinthetics always kill organics'
Something I enjoy about Sovereign (which makes him a better villain than Harbinger) is his Lovecraftian cosmicism. His talks about how the Reapers are the “pinnacle of evolution and existence”; his claims that he is beyond the comprehension of organics; and the dismissive inflection of his words towards Shepard, all resemble H. P. Lovecraft’s motifs of god-like space monsters that are beyond the realm of human imagination and understanding.
Learning that the technology we use was made by the reapers so we could advance in the exact direction they wanted to was a huge mindfuck and masterful writing.
This scene makes you realize how deep this goes with the Reapers. They’re real, and they are far more powerful than we realized. The realization that we are in way over our heads is terrifying, and even worse is that we are potentially the only ones that are in a position to stop them.
Shepard interacting with the beacon was a careless thing to do. After Ashley and Kaidan take Shepard back to the Normandy. Shepard can say Ashley or Kaidan were careless when they approached the beacon. It's ironic, when Shepard does the same, and puts Saren's base on high alert after talking to sovereign. Saren and Benezia knew Shepard was on eden prime after Shepard interacted with the beacon. The beacon on Virmire was how Saren knew his base was under attack. Before Geth reinforcements arrive to the bomb site, Shepard makes another ridiculous decision. Placing the nuke before Kirrahe's team can make it to the rendezvous point. Not providing backup in advance was where it all went wrong. Leaving only two people to defend a nuclear weapon without any support endangered everyone and the mission itself. Whoever dies between Ashley or Kaidan, is Shepard's fault and the result of poorly made decisions, we didn't even make ourselves.
Sovereign, Saren and Benezia were the perfect trio of terror. The way Sovereign controlled Saren who controlled Benezia and the Geth, flawless. Saren was an excellent sympathetic villain he builds his story to where by the end you're all but rooting for him. Sovereign is the mastermind later game titles have been trying to replicate. Nothing fazed him at all, Sheppard and the galaxy rising against him were like flies buzzing around your face. He didn't realize his mistake till it was too late.
• "Your extinction is inevitable; we are the end of *_everything."_* And yet this comes from the same war machine that dares call itself and its kind eternal... ...that assimilates the very "mutants" they so despise to ensure the future of their kind, too. Sovereign is not only a terrifying villain... *_he is a damn good bluffer._* Without a cyclical supply of organic life, Reapers would simply wither away in the dead of space like anything else.
I like Harbinger more than Sovereign overall, but you can't deny how hard this exchange goes. "You exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it." Goosebumps.
except the Leviathan DLC. Seriously, the conversation with Leviathan is one of the best ME moments, perfectly written and directed and with incredible soundtrack. It rivals this exchange in my opinion
Is it me of does this Sovereign talk slightly faster than the older version? I swear the old one had more pauses in his words or pronounces them more longer. Especially the "you touch my mind fumbling in ignorance', I always heard it as you touch my mind....fumbling in ignorance." I'm sure I sound bat shit insane or something but yeah....
These my friends are the true Reapers. Not the watered down versions of ME3 ( and to a lesser extend in ME2 they began to ruin the lore). The revelation in this cut-scene makes them seem incomprehensible and inevitable like a natural disaster. A fleet was decimated just taking down a SINGLE ONE. In my opinion they should have left them as an incomprehensible mystery that leaves us wondering who created them and IF they have a creator are they coming to invade next?. An extra-galactic origin would have been much more interesting. The reaper altered species were also a bad decision but I can understand from a design perspective. The lore before said that it was impossible to detect reaper agents and in the end species were fighting against members of their own as agents infiltrated without being detected. After the invasion was concluded these indoctrinated individuals were left to die by the Reapers.
The reapers are a rare type of horror. Normally when you reveal the details of the monster it becomes less scary. When the truth about the reapers is revealed sovereign goes from being a weird looking ship to one of the most horrifying concepts in science fiction. The great filter isn't a concept anymore. It's alive and it hates everything.
"You're not even alive - not really. You're just a machine, and machines can be broken." Iconic line honestly, and a perfect summation of humanity. In the face of horrors from beyond time and space our response is "grog smash"
I wish they wouldn't have revealed the actual origins of the reapers. Finding out that they are just rouge AIs that killed their creators is a logical explanation but takes away some of the mystique that they have. Maybe they should have narratively leaned harder into the fact that FTL travel is literally ripping the universe apart and without the reapers stopping civilizations from becoming too advanced the whole universe would tear itself apart. It would have been interesting to grapple with that moral question in the games
In ME1 they were an unfathomable, lovecraftian threat. In ME2 and ME3 they were made into an enemy of the week. Shepard's quest should never have been about defeating the reapers, but about how to avoid having to fight them in the first place. Sadly, the games got swept into the michael bay style of storytelling - just make everything explode with hoo-rah power - which was ubiquitous in that time.
You know whats funny? Sovereign probably one of the first reaper. He started several cycles before. Millions of years and Shepard was the first who was capable to broke this cycle.
I was in AWE when I saw this cutscene the first time. I had to finish the game in one sitting after I had seen it. Didnt matter how late I would stay up - I HAD to save the galaxy. Sovereign was a badass, and a gigantic threat to the entire galaxy. Too bad ME2 and 3 fucked that up big time, by simply implying he was just exaggerating or lying, about literally everything.... Why would BioWare want their villain to be less of a threat? To make the story less epic? It doesn't make any sense... Really didn't like where they went with the story after ME1 ended. Not one bit.
so if those beings were that powerful and that ancient....how were they defeated by tiny humans....did they really stand no chance against the plucky power of friendship and believing in yourself?
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Sovereign's voice was way more intimidating than Harbinger's
Because Sovereign didn’t emote, you couldn’t irritate him, you couldn’t frighten him, you couldn’t get him excited, nothing. Sovereign was truly a lovecraftian horror, an inhuman emotionless god. Harbinger could get irritated and excited, he felt more human, which in a rare case worked against his characterization.
@@jamesxiaolong2199 They also used a normal human voice for Harbinger, Sovereign on the other hand sounds like a machine. That made a huge difference.
Correct! this was my favorite synth robot voice of all time.
@@zephid11 nope. Sovereign's voice was done by Peter Jessop.
@@cmdrtianyilin8107 I never said that they didn't use a voice actor for Sovereign's voice. Obviously they used a real human to record sovereign's lines, but they added filters/effects to the voice in order to change it into what we hear in-game (they did the same with Legion in ME2, just to an even greater extent). However, they didn't really do that with Harbinger, at least not to the same extent and that's why Sovereign sounds a lot more machine-like compared to Harbinger.
Tell me an antagonist that has a line that goes harder than "before us, you are nothing. Your extinction is inevitable" or "you exist because we allow it. And you will end because we demand it." That shit was terrifying because he wasn't bluffing at all.
The only thing I can think, from what I have know, is the Borg.
"Existence as you know it is over. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile."
I imagine they took "we demand it" from Animatrix
Why him and Saren are the best villians, they don't bluff, they don't gloat. They were serious.
Yeah. I just love Sovreign's to the point, matter of fact tone.
Unlike Harbinger who basically has no character and just taunts us throughout Mass Effect 2.
Awesome voice acting/editing as well, that is what drives it home for me. But I have some:
Ragnaros - World of WarCraft
The Lich King - WoW too
...
Okey let's pick just one more from WoW, because there are way too many that have really good hypetrain lines.
I'm going to go with...The Eredar Twins
Outside of WoW I can also say a few that did a good job, let's see:
Thaos ix Arkannon - Pillars of Eternity The entire plot was really amazing there and he is an excellent villain.
Interestingly I would like to add characters from Fromsoft games, but I can't. There isn't much acting in those games and 95% of all hype comes directly from the boss encounter.
This was the moment that mass effect went from good to holy fuck this game is incredible.
Exactly. At first I thought it was just a clichéd game of "bad guy goes rogue and wants to take over." Soon as I heard this speech I knew the game would have a great storyline.
@@shlomorothstein9691 It's probably one of the most impressive scenaristic surprise in a video game. You play like most of the game fighting a rogue special force soldier having delusions of grandeur and having weird ambitions of bringing back the Reapers that are vaguely described up that point. And then suddenly, Saren is neither the main villain or trully an actual villain, just a puppet of an incredibly frightening lovecraftian mechanical being of incredible power that is just the vanguard of an overwhelming force. And this was all done with incredible skill.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. I thought Saren was the real enemy… but yeah he was nothing.
I still remember this scene when I first played, mind blown.
The combat was meh in the first, but the story carried it for sure.
"Your words are as empty as your future, I am the vanguard of your destruction"
"This exchange is over." Or how to end the conversation as a lovecraftian imbelievably powerful cybernetic being.
@@philipped.r.6385 has the same impact as MCP saying “End of line.”
CHILLS, gives me Darkseid vibes
Last guy who trashtalked me was 2 kilometers taller than you x|
Perfect sci-fi horror moment. You're a citadel agent stumbling around when suddenly you get to talk to some random red AI. You start asking it questions like any other inane console or computer. Then it starts talking, and the answers are more and more terrifying.
AI feels like a term too small for the reapers I know that is what they are but it feels almost belittling given what they are
This is one of my favourite moments in gaming history. The way Sovereign talks blew me away back in 2007. I’ve replayed this scene so many times I lost count. Seeing this scene remastered with FemShep is gaming at its best!
care little for femshep
but i have to admit that this scene made lasting impression
that voice
these words
the culmination for all of that searching for answers
despite of not being actual boss or even great mastermind worthy of chase ... sovereign became impressive icon for entire game and it sucks that there was no other effort to make reapers impressive
Ikr? Every sentence is even more chilling than than the last.
Found his voice more intimidating than Harbinger's.
@@SuperLumianaire Far more
Sovereign speech is probably the best villain exposition that has ever been done in history of gaming. Everything about it is excellent and gives me goosebumps. First, its emotionless deep robotic voice is absolutely chilling.
Second, the sentences wording is carefully studied to give an impression of linguistic sophistication without making him overly poetic like a more aristocratic villain would sound like. His words are the ones of a very knowledgeable machine using words with surgical precision and calculated to make the most intimidating and despairing effect on Shepard's group.
Third, Sovereign build up his exposition to create the impression that countless of stronger civilisations fell to them and we're just one of many who inevitably fall violently. All resistance is useless and we will be crushed like insects. He shows the contempt toward us that we have against rats and other vermin. Furthermore, at the very begining, he clearly states that trying to understand the Reapers or their goals is absolutely impossible to us and not even worth trying. And interestingly, he tells us just enough to be terrified, but only gives us vague answers on what matters so that we can't use what he said against the Reapers. We don't know much more about them than before.
The end result is that we get out of the conversation with the conviction that we're facing an unknowable species of lovecraftian mechanical horrors, so ancient and powerful that we might as well just leave ourselves to be destroyed without resistance. I remember getting out from that scene thorougly demoralised and hopeless. Not even the villains of Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, respectively Sarevok and Jon Irenicus, gave me that. What I experienced facing Sovereign there was absolutely unique in my long experience in RPGs and video games in general.
"Your civilization is based on the technology of the mass relays, our technology. By using it, your society develops along the paths we desire. We impose order on the chaos of organic evolution. You exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it."
-- Sovereign, Mass Effect
Nazara*
@@PerfectAlibi1 According to what the Geth call Nazara; "I am beyond your comprehension; I am Sovereign!"
There is the same situation with Harbingers name.
Harbinger - "I am Harbinger."
Leviathan - "YOU call it... Harbinger."
Perhaps Nazara is the Geth (or more properly Quarian) word for sovereign. Although, I would assume that logically, each being would refer to itself by its true name, without deviation or translation.
@@nevd78 What we hear is "Sovereign" and "Harbinger"
Shepherd; there is a whole galaxy out there united against you!
Sovereign: yeah, that’s what they said last time. And the time before that. And the time before that. I’m sure they’ll say it again next time too.
Sovereign vanguard of our extinction. How its working out for you big guy?
When my cat looks at me, I often imagine this is what he's thinking lol
😂😂
"You exist to please me. I am the apex predator. You are merely an agent of my will, a mere tool in my paw."
I love the new lighting and environmental detail in this room. It's such a small thing but to have Sovereign's hologram reflect off of Shepard's face is *such* a nice addition and makes the close-ups more menacing. This room might be my favourite remastered environment of the whole game. Which, considering Ilos exists, is impressive.
Yup, also the shot of the glass breaking while Sovereign taking off, is new, which I thought it was, so I check out the old version of it, found out that I was right.
It perfectly sells the intimidation of Sovereigns presence and words.
You exist because we allow it and you end because we demand it. Such a chilling line with voice.
As fun of an antagonist Harbinger was, with his endless shit talking every single time you run into him, it just doesn't even come within a ten mile radius of being as terrifying as Sovereign.
Harbinger was almost a comic book or TV show villain, his taunting and sense or arrogance and the thought he's always going to win in the end.
But Sovereign? He was a Lovecraftian nightmare, a being almost as old as life itself, each word was forward and direct and brutally honest. He says that you can never understand him, because he transcends understanding, no emotions or sense of pride, everything he said was lest a boast and more a statement of fact. A horrific truth that would drive most mad. And he just ends the conversation cause he knows it's pointless, in a hundred years or so everyone and everything will be dead regardless
"we are each a nation, free of every weakness. You can not even grasp the nature of our existence. We have no beginning, we have no end, we are infinite"
GOD, I love this speech so much.
"We are legion. The time of our return is coming. Our numbers will darken the sky of every world. You cannot escape your doom."
"You exist because we allow it. You will end because we demand it."
The power behind this word is immeasurable. It isn't boasting or threatening. It is merely STATING of what is coming. Life itself has no chance against a foe like this
“Then we will fight in the shade”
- Half naked oiled up Shephard to a confused Sovereign
This scene absolutely made the Mass Effect series for me. The writing for this section of the game is some of the best I have ever witnessed in gaming history. The way Bioware trickled out little bits and pieces of the story hiding what Sovereign is was pure brilliance.
This entire scene or planet was nothing short of breathtaking. We go planetside to stop Saren and the Geth. Saren has nowhere else to go and with the galaxy aligning against him, his defeat is all but assured. Sure he has a massive alien warship but against the entire fleet it would seem by this point it's only a matter of time before his reign of terror is over. Then...Sovereign reveals himself "We will blacken the skies with our numbers..."
Addendum- I am not EA's biggest fan and have spoken out against them many times these past 4 years. Up until the release of the Mass Effect Legendary Edition I hadn't purchased one of their games in almost 5 years. I have even rallied to have their games pulled from store shelves and online markets. I wanted their games reclassified as AO+ for their insidious gambling mechanics that are designed to target children. However, this is one time where EA has done something very right. We (fiancee and I) not only picked up this trilogy on day one but we bought two copies. I am playing on our Series X while she is enjoying it on our PS5 *physical. I don't know if a trilogy remaster has the ability to win Game of The Year but if it can...this is my choice.
Keep in mind that this was originally developed from 2006 - 2012. This was before EA became what it is today.
Something that isn't mentionned often enough in my opinion is how silences are carefully used in the course of Sovereign's exposition. It's like if Sovereign lets sink what he just said before starting up again to give time to maximise the effect of his intimidation attempts. It shows how subtle details like that can really change the emotional strength of a performance like this.
From that moment on, it's no longer a Sci-Fi thriller, but a Cosmic Horror Story.
That's a good way to put it.
“By using it, your society develops along the paths we desire.”
Apple: *Releases the iPhone the same year as this game*
Oh no.
That's why I have a motorola: non-reaper technology.
@@alexsturrock9602 XD Idk why that was hilarious!
Gen Z: *takes breaks from zombie scrolling by putting phone down*
Apple: *releases vision pro*
Before there was The Darkness pyramid ships in Destiny. There were the Reapers.
Lol id love if pyramids were like the reapers, but all we get as a villain is an angry father who gets slayed in 2 weeks ;(
Before the Reapers, there were the Shivans.
Something I believe needs more attention is the second line of Sovereign.
"Rudimentary creatures of blood and flesh, you touch my mind, fumbling in ignorance, incapable of understanding."
This one line has such an impact to the rest to the scene. The line tells us everything we need to know while telling us nothing at the same time. Absolutely brilliant.
From the start of the conversation the player is now aware that the stakes are much dire than previously conceived, as the machine asserts it's dominance. Showing us how Sovereign sees itself, Reapers, and all organic life, before we even get the context of this sentence. However, its reason for its view or its motives remain a mystery to us, and still does at the end of the conversation. All we know for certain is that the future holds destruction. Everything after this line is building a stronger foundation to why Sovereign said that in the first place.
Not to mention the delivery of the line is cold, emotionless, and devoid of sympathy, which for me meant Sovereign wasn't bluffing. It genuinely sees itself as something beyond organic life, and has demonstrated its superiority with a single line.
To me this is when this game turned from a Sci-Fi rpg, to the Mass Effect we all know and love (with the exception of the very end).
While it is brilliantly delivered, Shodan is actually the one who says it first. "pathetic creature of blood and bone" i think she says. I love this speech. it is the best for me in any game. knowing what we know now though its slightly comical that this dude is flat lying in a bunch of stuff he says 🤣
It reminds me of the introduction of the Gravemind. "This one is machine and nerve, and has its mind concluded. This one is but flesh and faith, and is the more deluded."
Easily my favorite synthesized robotic voice ever. I just love listening to it.
But the dialogue is also first rate. Truly a masterful delivery of his lines. It really does sell the idea that Sovereign is ultra intelligent and powerful compared to us pitiful, merely organic life forms.
We must all become one with the Reapers......We must all subject to their will.....
You got THAT right. I really hate that stupid 'Assuming control' guy after this.
Watch out! He's indoctrinated!
Hades from Horizon Forbidden West is very good too
And just think about how many cycles they've been doing this for. If one reaper is created for every civilization that is harvested. There has to be 1000s of reapers. So that's 1,000 reapers x 50,000 years per cycle = 50,000,000 years they've been around for. Nobody has been able to defeat them for at least 50,000,000 years. And the Leviathans are even older than them
you're off by an order of magnitude my guy, reapers are around a billion years old, to put it into perspective, when they first started harvesting, life on Earth was still unicellular and it would be over half a billion years till the first animals and plants started appearing.
@@Bartekkru100 In Leviathan DLC, we know from the Leviathan in ME3 that they created the Reapers about a billion years ago, which is about 20,000 cycles.
In ME2, de IFF from the derelict reaper was 37 million years old.
When I played this back in early 2008, it blew my mind when I realized that Sovereign was an actual Reaper, especially because you see his actual form right at the beginning of Eden Prime. Yet as you learn more about them, you wonder what the Reapers actually look like aside from their indoctrinated Husks. Being threatened by a malevolent mechanical voice that reveals itself as the vanguard of destruction, I think it's my favourite ME moment as a whole.
3:39 Sovereign be like: "Dam, what a child... Why am I wasting my time on this? Time that could be used indoctrinating someone and harvesting the other. Peace!"
"I don't think this is a VI..."
*Renegade queue*
"NO SHIT, WILLIAMS, YOU THINK?!"
This is one of the best conversions in the entire series in my opinion because at this stage we know very little about the Reapers but Sovereign's voice has such absolute diabolical malice you can have not doubt about it's intentions even if it didn't say them.
It's really interesting coming back to look at this *after* ME3. The sheer ignorance of Sheppard and her team here around just what the Reapers ARE. With Sovereigns almost eye rolling as these ants before it boast that they have an entire Galaxy waiting for it, calling it a VI, thinking its a ship 'crewed' by Reapers that Saren found, that its totally impossible they could have been around when the Protheans were and that they are totally going to break these machines if they come for them!
Confidence born of ignorance indeed. That was one of the great things about Mass Effect as the Reapers went from this mysterious force with a heroic defeat of them at the Citadel ... to the Galaxy map, just before Priority Earth with *every f*&king star system* across the entire Galaxy having a Reaper sitting on it to show how they have, despite all of our efforts and nominal victories, indeed covered the sky of every world and the only hope is a giant Hail-Mary untested superweapon that may or may not do a damn thing. And failure means that all this happens all over again in 50,000 years or so...
The cycle ends and another one begins
When a cycle ends another reaper gets created decreasing the chance of the next cycle’s chance to defeating the reapers
It is a continuous vicious cycle if not stopped
Okay but does anyone else think about the fact that the harbinger of the reapers is called Sovereign while the sovereign is called Harbinger?
All the damn time
I swear to all gods, I haven't slept during entire weeks because of that !
I can't because it's beyond my understanding lolol
It definitely lives rent free in my head since I played these games, lol.
When I first played through this was a huge twist I didn’t see coming.
So twisted I had nightmares 😂
One of the best "Oh my god..." moments in gaming history.
"You exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it."
That's what EA tells a studio they create or acquire, before one day shutting them down.
Sovereign: "The cycle cannot be broken."
Caboose: "What cycle? A motorcycle? A secret motorcycle! It's ok, you can tell me."
If Caboose were in Shepherd's boots, we'd all be history.
Lol
I'd pay good money for a series where Caboose gets placed in different video game franchises as the protagonist. If only Joel Heyman hadn't basically disappeared from the entertainment world.
@@doctorfives Nah, Caboose would have driven the Reapers to mass suicide just to get away from his special brand of deranged stupidity ^^'
Man. After Joker talks about Sovereign "moving your way" , it'd be amazingly epic if you got to see Sovereign descending down on Virmire. Instead of having to sacrifice a squadmate to hold off the Geth, it'd be so cool to have to choose which squadmate dies because of Sovereign decimating everything from orbit and it getting worse as Sovereign got closer. It'd really sell the epicness of the reapers due to it being the one situation in the entire game where one of your squadmates is 100% guaranteed to die due to a close call with just the ONE reaper. Would have been incredible.
That would've been sick, but they probably would've had trouble doing it justice with the time, budget, and tech of the time. Notice how you only see Sovereign in cutscenes and once as a texture in the skybox. I have a feeling that that was largely for technical reasons.
My favourite part is "You civilisation is based on the technology of the mass relays. Our technology. By using it, your society develops along the paths we desire." That's the line that really makes clear the magnitude of what Shepherd's up against - the Reapers laid a trap older than our species, and like every civilisation before us, we've fallen into it, shaping ourselves into a perfect target before the war even starts.
Sovereign's voice is colder than the winds outside the Peak 15 research facility on Noveria. 🥶
One of the greatest moments in gaming history
Rudamentary creatures of blood and flesh
This is one of the best horror twists (or culminations?) in sci-fi.
Suddenly, the missing races you've heard about, that Liara is obsessed with, their sudden disappearances, the fact the Citadel and relays are gold mines of technology yet left abandoned, it all snaps into focus. The GENIUS of leaving technological breadcrumbs to softly guide the next cycle to utterly rely on the relays, to ensure the cycle doesn't invent something totally new...
Whoever at BioWare thought that up was brilliant. It gives the entire game a "6th Sense" quality, where you have to play it a second time, knowing the reveal, to see all the setup that was RIGHT THERE but you didn't see it for what it was. It's something few "mysteries" in fiction manage to do properly but Mass Effect 1 absolutely smashed it.
His dialogue had weight. Made it clear just how insignificant you are to him.
Harbinger, by comparison, only regurgitated clichés without meaning. Sometimes, I think Sovereign should have been the leader.
We impose order on the chaos of organic evolution. You exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it.
Goddamn chills down my spine almost 14 years after experiencing it for the first time.
Starting to think Peter Jessop is a seriously underrated VA. Recently played fallout 4 and loved his performance as Paladin Danse. Especially in that showdown with Maxson in Blind Betrayal.
Such an amazing introduction to the antagonist race of the entire series, made a fool by the sheer existence of Mass Effect 3's story. No beginning? Infinite existence? So much for that, here are the leviathans and the god child.
Fun fact: Peter Jessop, aside from voicing Sovereign and other bunch of NPCs in Mass Effect 1 and Dragon Age Origins, also voices Miraak in the Dragonborn DLC of Skyrim.
I love how Sovereign doesn't threaten or boast. He simply states facts. If anything, it seems you're boring him.
This scene always gives me shivers. Something that is beyond simple fear. A creature that doesn't care. I wish they make an old script, when Reapers were trying to stop stars from dying. I don't like this stupidity with 'sinthetics always kill organics'
Sovereign: "We have no beginning, no end"
Leviathan: "Let me tell you how we started the reapers"
Shepard: "Let me tell you how I ended the reapers"
2:32-2:39
I know it's a short video, but this is what you came for.
Man, I remember the first time I met Sovereign. Fucking chills.
Something I enjoy about Sovereign (which makes him a better villain than Harbinger) is his Lovecraftian cosmicism. His talks about how the Reapers are the “pinnacle of evolution and existence”; his claims that he is beyond the comprehension of organics; and the dismissive inflection of his words towards Shepard, all resemble H. P. Lovecraft’s motifs of god-like space monsters that are beyond the realm of human imagination and understanding.
Virmire is probably the best mission in the series.
The end of an era where writers could still fathom massive concepts and execute
Chilling
I don’t think a game scared me more than the first time I saw this scene
Learning that the technology we use was made by the reapers so we could advance in the exact direction they wanted to was a huge mindfuck and masterful writing.
Among the most chilling interactions in gaming history.
Soundwave stop roleplaying with the humans and get back to fighting autobots
This scene makes you realize how deep this goes with the Reapers. They’re real, and they are far more powerful than we realized.
The realization that we are in way over our heads is terrifying, and even worse is that we are potentially the only ones that are in a position to stop them.
i just realised - when shepard asks how many reapers there are, sovereign says "we are legion". then 2 years later they named their robo-friend legion
Shepard interacting with the beacon was a careless thing to do. After Ashley and Kaidan take Shepard back to the Normandy. Shepard can say Ashley or Kaidan were careless when they approached the beacon. It's ironic, when Shepard does the same, and puts Saren's base on high alert after talking to sovereign. Saren and Benezia knew Shepard was on eden prime after Shepard interacted with the beacon. The beacon on Virmire was how Saren knew his base was under attack.
Before Geth reinforcements arrive to the bomb site, Shepard makes another ridiculous decision. Placing the nuke before Kirrahe's team can make it to the rendezvous point. Not providing backup in advance was where it all went wrong. Leaving only two people to defend a nuclear weapon without any support endangered everyone and the mission itself. Whoever dies between Ashley or Kaidan, is Shepard's fault and the result of poorly made decisions, we didn't even make ourselves.
I remember the first time I reached this, my subwoofer was working overtime.
Sovereign really makes you feel insignificant.
"hit me joker"
That's what she said.
Sovereign, Saren and Benezia were the perfect trio of terror. The way Sovereign controlled Saren who controlled Benezia and the Geth, flawless. Saren was an excellent sympathetic villain he builds his story to where by the end you're all but rooting for him. Sovereign is the mastermind later game titles have been trying to replicate. Nothing fazed him at all, Sheppard and the galaxy rising against him were like flies buzzing around your face. He didn't realize his mistake till it was too late.
• "Your extinction is inevitable; we are the end of *_everything."_*
And yet this comes from the same war machine that dares call itself and its kind eternal...
...that assimilates the very "mutants" they so despise to ensure the future of their kind, too.
Sovereign is not only a terrifying villain... *_he is a damn good bluffer._*
Without a cyclical supply of organic life, Reapers would simply wither away in the dead of space like anything else.
Bioware in late 2007: Top tier story, characters, lore, and dialog.
Bioware in 2024: "PuLlInG a BaRvE" when you misgender someone. 🤪
These things are like a fusion of the Borgs and god bug but a million time more dangerous.
Fun fact: The guy who voices Sovereign also voices Paladin Danse in Fallout 4
It is like talking with the Borg but they're more smug
I like Harbinger more than Sovereign overall, but you can't deny how hard this exchange goes. "You exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it." Goosebumps.
Usually I would say Sovereign doesn't give a fuck but even that is too mutch. He just declares and than leaves.
Epic!
ME3 was missing this energy
except the Leviathan DLC. Seriously, the conversation with Leviathan is one of the best ME moments, perfectly written and directed and with incredible soundtrack. It rivals this exchange in my opinion
I don't know why but I find Sovereign's voice to be rather soothing 🤣
Is it me of does this Sovereign talk slightly faster than the older version? I swear the old one had more pauses in his words or pronounces them more longer. Especially the "you touch my mind fumbling in ignorance', I always heard it as you touch my mind....fumbling in ignorance." I'm sure I sound bat shit insane or something but yeah....
Soverign was definitely the best thing about the first game
These my friends are the true Reapers. Not the watered down versions of ME3 ( and to a lesser extend in ME2 they began to ruin the lore). The revelation in this cut-scene makes them seem incomprehensible and inevitable like a natural disaster. A fleet was decimated just taking down a SINGLE ONE. In my opinion they should have left them as an incomprehensible mystery that leaves us wondering who created them and IF they have a creator are they coming to invade next?. An extra-galactic origin would have been much more interesting. The reaper altered species were also a bad decision but I can understand from a design perspective. The lore before said that it was impossible to detect reaper agents and in the end species were fighting against members of their own as agents infiltrated without being detected. After the invasion was concluded these indoctrinated individuals were left to die by the Reapers.
Something tells me H.P. Lovecraft would approve :)
one of the most imposing voices along with darkseid(zack snyders) tfp megatron and the dalek emperor
The reapers are a rare type of horror. Normally when you reveal the details of the monster it becomes less scary. When the truth about the reapers is revealed sovereign goes from being a weird looking ship to one of the most horrifying concepts in science fiction. The great filter isn't a concept anymore. It's alive and it hates everything.
"You're not even alive - not really. You're just a machine, and machines can be broken."
Iconic line honestly, and a perfect summation of humanity. In the face of horrors from beyond time and space our response is "grog smash"
Remember that you will never even once have this kind of quality writing from Bioware. Never. Its over.
Playing a game like this without subtitles is the behavior of a lunatic
If only they kept the Reapers like this and not turned into some "oh they're just doing as programming dictates!" nonsense
Shocking and unforgiven
Legendary
Why are the Sovereign's answers delayed in this edition? It looks like the Reaper is glitching due to lack of RAM. Amusing.
the expressions are so blank.....but i still love it!😂
I wish they wouldn't have revealed the actual origins of the reapers. Finding out that they are just rouge AIs that killed their creators is a logical explanation but takes away some of the mystique that they have. Maybe they should have narratively leaned harder into the fact that FTL travel is literally ripping the universe apart and without the reapers stopping civilizations from becoming too advanced the whole universe would tear itself apart. It would have been interesting to grapple with that moral question in the games
In ME1 they were an unfathomable, lovecraftian threat. In ME2 and ME3 they were made into an enemy of the week.
Shepard's quest should never have been about defeating the reapers, but about how to avoid having to fight them in the first place. Sadly, the games got swept into the michael bay style of storytelling - just make everything explode with hoo-rah power - which was ubiquitous in that time.
i could listen to the reapers all day.
Aw shit I'm indoctrinated.
Let’s not overlook “I don’t think this is a VI”
You know whats funny? Sovereign probably one of the first reaper. He started several cycles before. Millions of years and Shepard was the first who was capable to broke this cycle.
Soooooo much better than Harbinger.
I was in AWE when I saw this cutscene the first time. I had to finish the game in one sitting after I had seen it. Didnt matter how late I would stay up - I HAD to save the galaxy. Sovereign was a badass, and a gigantic threat to the entire galaxy. Too bad ME2 and 3 fucked that up big time, by simply implying he was just exaggerating or lying, about literally everything....
Why would BioWare want their villain to be less of a threat? To make the story less epic? It doesn't make any sense... Really didn't like where they went with the story after ME1 ended. Not one bit.
This exchange is over...so sassy
Based
Ashley and Sovereign were based asf in 2007. If only we listened to them
The game is nothing special until you meet sovereign
Keith Szarabajka is brilliant as the Didact in Halo but pales in comparison to Sovereign.
But Harbringer was entertaining in his own way.
as perfect as he claims to be he took half an hour to say "develops"
so if those beings were that powerful and that ancient....how were they defeated by tiny humans....did they really stand no chance against the plucky power of friendship and believing in yourself?
this is the best lovecraftian game... that never makes it on to any "best lovecraftian games "
3:08 *Leviathan has entered the chat*
Sovereign: They don't need to know that.
😊