User blog comment:Ironreaper/Retcons and Contradictions in the Reapers/@comment-4579012-20120421184209/@comment-3325589-20120422213339

@Sheb: The fact that it looks like a laser* doesn't mean it is one. I'm pretty sure there are mentions in both ME1 and ME2 regarding Sovereign's use of magnetohydrodynamic weapons, on which the Citadel species later base the Thanix cannon. Aside from questions as to where these mentions crop up, none of this is really up for debate. You're allowed to dislike that Reaper weapons look like lasers but aren't actually lasers, but outside of that your points explicitly contradict what the game says.

What bugs me about Reaper weapons specs: According to the ME2 codex (and possibly ME1 as well?) Reapers have axial mass accelerators similar to those on dreadnoughts, but proportionally bigger and scarier. We never see Sovereign fire it, but supposedly it's there. Then ME3 retcons these away; it drops all mention of them, and attaches the explosive yield previously associated with the mass accelerator to the MHD cannon instead. Not a huge issue, but annoying. Animation budget constraints, perhaps?


 * That is, it looks like we think lasers are supposed to look, not like they actually would look in space, per what Diyartifact says.