The Galaxy has never faced a threat more absolute than that posed by the Reapers.
Ancient sentient starships from beyond the galactic rim, and the architects of an all-encompassing
plan to harvest the sentient life of the galaxy through a cycle of purges that has continued
for millennia beyond counting.
Most well-known to the people of the galaxy are the massive Reaper Capital ships which
make up the majority of the Reaper Armada.
Named “Sovereign Class” by the Systems Alliance after the first Reaper encountered,
even a single vessel of this kind can tear most Alliance or Citadel Council Fleets to
ribbons and shear through the hull plating of even the largest dreadnoughts in a single
hit.
Standing two-kilometres tall on a planet’s surface, and equally intimidating in space,
the Sovereign Class Reaper bears the shape of a colossal squid or cuttlefish, with many
of its powerful weapons mounted upon the tips of the vessel’s tendrils.
The ship’s articulate frame allows it to literally grapple with other vessels in combat,
tearing the plating from their hulls and cutting into them with weapons fire.
The sheer scale and terrifying visage of the Reaper is perhaps its most dangerous weapon
of all, especially in surface-based combat where its size alone makes victory against
it seem impossible.
The Extinction Cycle perpetuated by the reapers also serves as their means of reproduction.
In each cycle a race is harvested to produce a single capital sized reaper, with the remaining
races biomass being used to produce smaller Destroyer and Transport Class vessels.
The core of a reaper bears the image of the race harvested to create it, while the Reaper’s
external design is modelled after their original victims, the Leviathans.
The Sovereign Class Reaper is armed with a single spinal mounted magnetohydrodynamic
cannon with a yield equivalent to 450 kilotons of TNT.
The ship also carries several smaller beam lasers mounted on each of its tendrils, though
these weapons are less powerful than the primary cannon, they still possess more than enough
firepower to tear most Citadel or Alliance vessels apart.
The Reaper also carries an advanced point defence system, similar to the GARDIAN defence
lasers employed by the System’s Alliance.
In addition to its weapons arrays, the Sovereign class Reaper plays host to a large number
of Oculus Class drone fighters, this affords the ship a means of effectively engaging hostile
fighter squadrons and other small craft.
The Oculus possess more firepower than any of the fighter craft employed by the organic
races, and the fighter is also able to jettison its drive framework in order to launch itself
through the hull of an opposing vessel, where it can then inflict damage on its crew and
subsystems from the inside.
Both the Reapers themselves and their technology project a constant mental field which exerts
a disturbing influence on organic beings.
This process, known as Indoctrination, gradually manipulates the minds of organics, causing
them to believe the Reapers are correct in their goals, and giving them a strong desire
to serve the Reapers wishes.
Eventually the indoctrination process completely erodes the mind of the victim, leaving them
incapable of independent thought.
The Reapers maintain a level of control over this process, allowing them to retain a degree
of mental independence in certain victims in order to make them into more effective
servants.
A Reapers indoctrination field can remain active for millions of years after the Reapers
death and even remains in some form when a reaper is completely destroyed.
Indoctrination is not the only means of mustering an army available to the reapers.
The internal hull of the reaper is lined with horrific conversion devices known as Dragons
Teeth, these devices are used to convert organic lifeforms into aggressive, mindless warriors
known as husks.
This is achieved by impaling the victim’s body on a large lance and feeding advanced
cybernetics into their corpses, a Reaper is able to produce Husks at an extremely fast
pace, and so long as victims remain available to be used as fuel, a Reaper will rarely exhaust
its supply of expendable troops.
Throughout the Reaper War, Sovereign class Reapers were responsible for the deaths of
countless billions of organics and the subjugation of dozens or worlds.
Though their kind was eventually defeated the Reapers effect on the people of the Galaxy
would never fade, instilling in the minds of organics an undeniable awareness that they
could never be truly prepared for what may be waiting beyond
the galaxy’s edge.