User blog comment:Subject 9/Reapers intrest in Humans/@comment-4038761-20110919192150

First, the idea that the race is harvested "when they become most advanced" is based at least partially by a misunderstanding. Before the Reapers were known, the talk of the prothians just dissapering at the height of their advancement was a mistery. When the Reapers come in and wipe all intelegent life, of course they will be at their "most advanced." The will advance no more when they are dead.

Second, the technological level of the species is not important to the Reapers. They have a specific technologgy in mind and those who are more adept at using it are what they are after. How intellegent or resistant or technologically superior a race may be is not the issue. It all depends on how well a race fits a predetermined list of genetic quirks known only to the Reapers determines how far that race has developed and just how interested in that species the Reapers will be as a possible raw resource for new Reapers. In the end, that is all the entirity of life is; raw resources. My speculation is that they want a short lived race (so they can more quickly develop the appropriate traits) with biotic potential that can handle some heavy genetic engineering.

Think of it like rocks. Different species are different types of rock. The Reapers want to build new Reapers with a specific type of rock. How dense it is, the colors it may have, the hardness, crystiline structure, the clarity, none of that matters. It will all be powered and reformed anyway. They want a blend that will work best for them.