User blog comment:Commdor/Questions for Mass Effect 3/@comment-118213-20101216230959/@comment-2088100-20101217011445

I think humans being the primary target is going in the right direction. I think it's only logical to assume that they're not -just- attacking Earth. I have to assume that they're hitting Arcturus and other logical military targets.

Why then, amongst targets of obvious importance, is Earth attacked? Perhaps it's a morale-related thing. Reapers want to instil fear in their targets? Seems a very human tactic. Who knows if the Reapers can/would exploit emotional response.

Maybe it's related to pure numbers. Earth has far and away the largest number of humans on it in the galaxy. And it was speculated on the Collector Ship that their (Collector's) eventual target would be Earth. It's not much of a stretch to imagine that it would become a prime Reaper target as well, assuming that they're still interested in collecting humans, anyway.