User blog comment:Markurion/Extended Cut or Prolonged torture?/@comment-3538356-20120408032009/@comment-1441235-20120408184518

Ok, but that still leaves a question: What happens in the meantime? More advanced FTL won't just appear out of thin air. It'll take time to develop. What happens to the colonies that require outside support until someone manages to develop that technology, let alone the time it'll take to actually get to that system? They'll probably die, much like every one of the dextro DNA beings that are stuck in Sol after Shepard does what he does. That isn't even to mention the fact that the Reapers, the most technologically advanced race of the time, still took months/ years to travel from wherever they were hiding in dark space to reach first the galaxy and then the next closest relay after the one Shepard destroyed and they were leaps and bounds ahead of the Council races' technology. Even if the Council races manage to come up with Reaper level FTL drives in a short amount of time, that means we are still left with the equivalent of planes disappearing and sending us back to the days of traveling overseas by ship. The loss of the relays is still a massive hit to the galactic community, regardless of their ability to someday, in the probably distant future, they manage to overcome it.