Juggler wrote...
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=fermi+paradox
The answer to the Fermi Paradox of "machine intelligence hates organic life" isn't especially unique.
The overall method by which the Inhibitors actually destroy civilizations is rather different from the Reapers, as well - I have both played ME1, ME2, read Revelation Space, and its sequels. The Inhibitors actually do such crazy things as harvest gas giants and suns as weapons... the Reapers are pretty much just intelligent super-spaceships.
The Inhibitors are eventually defeated due to the first alien race that humanity has encountered, as opposed to in ME where humanity emerged onto a stage of interstellar civilization populated by many aliens, and seem to be on their way to defeating the Reapers through good old-fashioned human ingenuity and random-ass luck. Also, Shepherd is a demigod.
Some kind of answer to the Fermi paradox has to be put into any decent sci fi. Either worlds are more barren, races blow themselves up before achieving true interstellar flight, civs eventually advance to becoming pure energy beings or some such, or civs start building Dyson spheres and don't need our shitty floating rock, etc. The fact that one of the answers "machine intelligences are waiting for us to show that we've 'woken up'" isn't that uncommon. Hell, the Heritage Trilogy by Ian Douglas has a machine monitoring our system from under Europa's ice...
Frankly, it pisses me off that someone would slander the story of a game I greatly enjoyed just because they don't go through enough sci fi to know that it's not exactly a unique idea.
Plagiarism is almost every Disney movie ever. Kimba the White Lion vs. Lion King, using every old fairy tale as a basis for other plots, Disney's Atlantis vs. Secret of Blue Water.
This isn't even as bad as Dances With Wolves/Avatar/Pocahontas. The endings aren't even remotely similar. This is like being upset that Dances With Wolves and The Last Mohican both contained some characters that were white, and some that were native american, despite the huge differences in plot and tone.
Get your shit straight.
Finally. +1 for you good sir.