[quote]Put in the UNSC and Systems Alliance. A victory for the Systems Alliance. Count in Reapers and Forerunners, a Halo victory. Add Precursors... Destruction of Mass Effect Universe, 110%.[/quote] I pretty much agree with this final outcome, except I don't think the Alliance could win against the UNSC alone. Whilst their ships are superior to the UNSCM in terms of weapon output and have shields, Humanity only has a handful of Dreadnaughts whilst the UNSC has significantly more assets to better absorb damages. The Reapers depend on a lot of guesswork to fight, as their weapons pale in comparison to the Forerunners. They would need to indoctrinate a Gravemind and use their accumulated numbers over the years to break into innumerous fragment and implant themselves onto Forerunner worlds to indoctrinate as many as they could, hoping to create civil war. The Issue is going to be a bit more complex however, Reapers have been around for over a billion years, and there have been at least 20,000 extinction cycles- each of whom has their own Citadel space Empire and manpower. This easily translates into hundreds of trillions of people; a quick estimate places them at 120,000 trillions! (or 120 Quadrillion) assuming each cycle has 6 trillion people in it per extinction cycle- a conservative number in my opinion. Still, numbers alone will only get Mass Effect so far, it needs a combination of things to go its way before it can win over the forerunner. The Forerunner on the other hand has stupidly powerful ship designs. Even if these ships are the equivalent of a battleship's investment for WW2 combatants, a single fleet of 10 could dominate an enemy several times their own mathematical power. However, looking to the Leyte Gulf we can see an example of how a few large guns relative to the numerical ratio can be eventually overwhelmed. I think we need to solve just how many naval assets the Forerunner had, and what the structure of their fleets had been. A trillion Reapers could easily overwhelm a single Fortress class through accumulative firepower, but how many Fortresses did they have? What else would be in support of them, and how many? Halo will undoubtedly be substantially outnumberedeven with the substantial numbers of the sentinels. At the end of their existence their combined fleet s was said to number only a few thousand, so their actual number in their prime would likely be far greater, however also less than the combined Flood/Forunner order of battles which had also been in the thousands. This could mean as few as 14,000, or as many as 999,999 ships. Offensive Bia's comments could also be mere Human figures of speeches on the part of the writer. An AI would know instantaoiusly esactly how many vessles are seen or known, whilst the term "Thousands" is just an expression to mean a lot. Impposible to say either way, but it's more food for thought. Looking to Operation Barbarossa for a classic example of how one can use their superior numbers to overcome a superior foe, I think Mass Effect will be banking upon using their numbers to spread themselves out as much as possible. They would likely hope to draw small bits of Halo forces into numerically unfavorable engagements in an attempt to whittle them down. In a pitched engagement, Mass Effect will be at a fair disadvantage against Halo once the Human Empire and Forerunners bring their weaponry to bare, but no one ever fights on their opponents terms, I doubt Mass Effect would allow itself to be engaged without beliving victroy is possible. If at least one Gravemind cannot be indoctrinated, then its going to be an uphill battle for Mass Effect, but hardly an easy win for Halo given the unqiue talents of the Reapers and Mass Effect's sheer numbers. [Edited on 05.12.2012 9:11 PM PDT]