Everything had a cause and effect.
In Fang Zheng's eyes, the Reapers' appearance was nothing more than... a joke.
A colossal joke.
The Reapers originated from the Leviathans. They had once been the most advanced civilization in this universe, the most powerful existence, occupying a position similar to the Forerunners in Halo and the Sargana in StarCraft.
Yet, like the Forerunners and the Sargana, the Leviathans had also made a mistake.
They had watched the civilizations of organic beings under their rule grow, only to be destroyed one by one by the machines those beings had created. The entire process was no different from how the Quarians created the Geth, and the Geth rebelled and drove the Quarians away. The only difference was that the Geth had merely driven the Quarians away rather than exterminating them.
But to the Leviathans, this was intolerable.
Machines possessed no creativity and brought them no benefit, so the Leviathans intended to break this cycle in which organic beings created synthetic life, only to be destroyed by their own creations. Thus, they made an enormous mistake.
To protect these organic species, the Leviathans created an artificial intelligence to solve the problem. Yet what the Leviathans had not expected was that, after its calculations, the artificial intelligence concluded that the best solution was to periodically destroy organic civilizations and preserve them.
And so, something the Leviathans had never expected happened—so as to ensure its plan proceeded smoothly, the artificial intelligence turned on them and attacked the Leviathans first. This left them in despair as they realized that not only had they failed to break the cycle of being destroyed by their own creations, but they had also been drawn into it by their own mistaken judgment.
The Leviathans, as creators, became the first race to be