User blog comment:Elseweyr/Mass reading for best Effect – Introducing the Mass Effect Book Club/@comment-24699512-20140330211518/@comment-9753034-20140402153510

I may be overlooking something or overthinking it to the point that I end up on the side of ignorance, but I almost find it unlikely that the aliens behind the Arca Monolith were Reapers. Barely anything about it resembles what the Reapers do, except taking control over their victims in some way and adding glowy blue bits to them in the process. The rest -- their language which Desolas was able to "dig up" and learn to speak, the victims retaining some intelligence in order to recruit more protectors for the artifact, the devolution function itself -- doesn't entirely fit.

If we assume the Monolith is Reaper tech and that Harper was more or less affected or even indoctrinated already at this stage, well, that is pretty speculative and unlike indoctrination as we know it. Indoctrination always comes at the cost of losing control of yourself and requires physical presence to or implantation with Reaper tech. The accounts of Saren and TIM up to the point where they came into direct contact with the Reapers -- Saren discovering Sovereign, TIM letting himself be implanted -- doesn't hint at indoctrination in any way.

Evolution was released between Mass Effect 2 and 3 to shed light on TIM's past. If we knew for certain the Monolith was of Reaper origin and has been affecting him all this time, I think it would do a disservice to TIM as a character and the story as a whole, making it overly obvious that he acted under Reaper influence. A player of the games would have to guess at what made TIM the way he is and only knows for certain that at some point in his experiments, he lost his way. The comic would largely take away this mystery and I find it unlikely that it was meant to be the definitive explanation to TIM's persona and agenda, as in "oh yes, in all the time you knew him he was the Reapers' puppet, so there you go, mystery solved."

The fact that other races have possessed the ability to control other sentient beings and even alter them physically (eg. the Thorian) is not to be forgotten. The story may simply serve as an isolated case to provide some basis for both TIM's and Saren's quests for power through the means of mastering tools eclipsing current technology, ending with most concrete evidence of the artifact being eradicated and the case closed. To me this seems to pave the way to TIM's desire to control the Reapers just fine without having them be involved directly at this stage.

It's easier to argue there's enough evidence pointing to the Reapers and too little to something else, but I'm inclined to think it's the other way around. At the very least, the reader can't know for certain what is behind it all, though in my mind the notion of an unknown alien force forever marking our couple of adversaries makes for a better story -- one I ultimately choose to believe.