User blog comment:Mike Gilbert/Do you think the Reapers should keep their powers after Synthesis?/@comment-26516989-20130515224034/@comment-72.49.149.251-20130517014947

While I understand that you hate postulation in regards to such an unexplained end-point Ms. Lulamoon, perhaps the narrative has given us the answer? Since the Reapers seem to have an aptitude for both nanotechnology and cybernetics, perhaps the "green blast" we see is actually a dense cloud of nanites? The little buggers might embed themselves in the bodies of organics and A) make their bodies more receptive towards foreign matter (the cybernetics clearly bolted into every living soul we see, also accounts for the "creating new D.N.A" phrase the control-core says) and B) strengthen their immune system at the same time (see "Deus Ex"). For the Sentient Machines, the nanites build onto their existing intelligence with "miscellaneous" things (emotions, environmental receptors etc.) to the point that fleshy grey-matter and clanker black-box become almost indistinguishable in structure and design (besides the squishiness/metallicness of either). Of course, there is one difficulty with all of this. Since the pulse was a one-shot blast, what happens to the life-forms that evolve in the aftermath independently of the existing races? Do we become this realities' version of the Warhammerverses' Necrons and go out to purge the galaxy of the "un-bonded", ignore them and go about our business, or do we set off another blast and start over again and again? (Dear God, my fingers have actually gone numb from typing!)