User blog comment:RayShepp654/How to defeat the Reapers Theories/@comment-1715766-20101030055646/@comment-217683-20101030231032

But something to consider here: The current situation in the galaxy is decidedly unlike the situation the Reapers faced when they took down the Protheans. (Can't speak for the other times, so going with what I can speak on). When they confronted the Protheans, they took down one large empire consisting (apparently) of one race controlling most of the known galaxy. Large empires with little or no external threat (which seems to fit the Protheans) grow stagnant and complacent, and their military capabilities atrophy at an alarming rate.

On the other hand, in the current situation we have a myriad of competing races, who sometimes compete violently. These races, even the ones who are allied and unified, fear external threats (batarians, the Terminus Systems, krogan, you name it) and maintain substantial military forces, as well as continually researching newer and more effective ways to kill people and break things. This leads to alertness, ability to adapt to changing situations fairly rapidly, and military preparedness. There's a reason that Europeans were able to dominate China in the 18th and 19th centuries, after all. While European nations had formidable military forces using the latest technology, due to centuries of warfare with their neighbors, China had been stagnating for several centuries, and as such had obsolete forces woefully unprepared to resist.

Given these facts, and given also that we have already seen the demise of one full-grown and one larval Reaper, the elimination of the Citadel as a Reaper avenue of attack, and the near (if not total) elimination of the Collectors as pawns of the Reapers, I think that the races of the ME universe as it currently stands may be uniquely suited to combating the Reapers in pitched battle.