What if in ME3, the Reapers win, clean out the galaxy once again and what we're playing through now is actually 50,000 years ago, not in our near future? 
 
Chew over THAT ONE?!

a long time ago in a galaxy thats totally our own?

" a long time ago in a galaxy thats totally our own? "

A better gasp moment that has been stewing in my head, is that the tech used to bring back Shepard was salvaged tech from Sovereign. Making Shepard part reaper.

No no no, the only possibility is that the reapers are actually advanced droids created to serve a reborn Darth Vader II who is actually Luke Skywalker......................no.........................okay fine.

No but seriously, I hope they keep using the Mass Effect universe after the next game because I have a feeling that by the end of the third it will become my favorite science fiction universe.

" No but seriously, I hope they keep using the Mass Effect universe after the next game because I have a feeling that by the end of the third it will become my favorite science fiction universe. "

" What if in ME3, the Reapers win, clean out the galaxy once again and what we're playing through now is actually 50,000 years ago, not in our near future?  Chew over THAT ONE?! "

No, this is not possible. Mass Effect takes place in the 2180's, and they explicitly mention people and events that happened in real life in the past. Everything that has ever happened in our reality has occurred in the world of Mass Effect, with the exception of Mass Effect and any references to Mass Effect.

I have wondered this question myself. It could be any different timespan, far into the future or far behind. If it was, it just goes to show that we always develop along the exact same paths... it just goes to show that what Sovereign said in the first game is true - we "develop along the paths we (The Reapers) desire." 
 
But then if that were true all the races would be different... difference in races comes from extremely small differences in things like the climate and geological make of their homeworld - I doubt that in another timeline there would be another race that would basically just be the same as the previous race that inhabited the planets. In the time that it would take for humans to develop as a species from the biological bacteria we started out as, the conditions for life would probably have changed on the planet we call Earth and the species that becomes developed there in the next timeline would be different because of it.  
 
I love talking about nerdy stuff like that :P

"No, this is not possible. Mass Effect takes place in the 2180's, and they explicitly mention people and events that happened in real life in the past. Everything that has ever happened in our reality has occurred in the world of Mass Effect, with the exception of Mass Effect and any references to Mass Effect. "

Maybe Mass Effect is only our story, and in the end we ourselves in the real world are whats left of humanity and the reapers are waiting for us to find the Citadel!

We know it didn't happen 50,000 years ago because humans have been around much longer than that.  Humans hadn't advanced far enough technologically to use the Mass Relays back then, so the Reapers ignored them the last time they came around.

If the timeline was more vague it is possible you could interepret it as such but in any case, it's possible it could do a whole assassin's creed 2 on us, where we're humanity developing from the ruins of a previous human race. That we have the christian calendar added to it though like 2151 or whatever year it is for humans, means it's unlikely but still.
 
Though I have given it thought, no matter how many times your race regenerates itself, no matter how many times it survives certain extinction...that doesn't change logic in any sense, throwing a rock on a planet with gravity usually means without sufficient force to outbeat gravity, it will fall eventually and its possible that all the previous humanities have found ranged weapons and kinetic barriers to be the pinnacle of self protection for the user, that most of the time against biological threats of our own shape and size often bullets work best as opposed to other forms of weapon using other forms of energy.
 
Just again, if the human Christian timeline wasn't implemented you could maybe argue that case better.

Well, seeing as they specifically mention years (Mass Effect 1 starts in year 2183 AD), as well as many very specific details from our own history (Ashley directly quoting Lord Tennyson for example), I'm pretty sure they intend for these games to take place in the future.

" I was actually throwing that possibility in my mind.  The odds of the being the case make it seem silly and I feel like that'd be a cop out *gasp* moment that I think the Bioware guys are smarter than. "

" Well, seeing as they specifically mention years (Mass Effect 1 starts in year 2183 AD), as well as many very specific details from our own history (Ashley directly quoting Lord Tennyson for example), I'm pretty sure they intend for these games to take place in the future. "

Yes, could have.
But no, because the fiction and codex states otherwise. As mentioned before bioware has already detailed it greatly, with earth discovering the first mass relay and prothean technologies etc.
 
Would have been one hell of a mindfuck though. A nice prequel would be to play during the age of the protheans. Or as the race BEFORE the protheans. Or as yourself being a young Turian agent after they first discovered the citadel, or had the first contact war.
 
Man this universe is fucking rich in fiction, they have to make more games beyond ME3.
 
Mass Effect: The Skyllian Blitz
Mass Effect: Adventures of the Asari
 
To name but a few ubergeneric titles.

No. And this would be a stupid twist.

If they use the AD years (not sure if they do) then it would mean that history would repeat itself almost exactly the same (or have a messiah like Jesus replacement) which would seem unlikely since events are all random and for history to blah blah blah blah ..... but I have wondered that in the past.

That's a ridiculous suggestion. The game explicitly says the date which is in the 2100's. Hell, your ship is called the Normandy after the battle of Normandy in WW2. That was not 50,000 years ago

I think it's more likely that Avatar is a sequel to "The Matrix"

How would Sir Isaac Newton be the toughest son of a bitch in the galaxy then?

Are you trying to tell me this didn't happen? 
  

However much I find the idea intriguing, the fact that the Cerberus network screen mentioned that Super Bowl 200-and-something was being played kind of nixes the concept.

" @DRE7777 said:

" No but seriously, I hope they keep using the Mass Effect universe after the next game because I have a feeling that by the end of the third it will become my favorite science fiction universe. "

This. I really want to see another game maybe 100 years after ME3 that isn't so much about the epic storyline but lets you explore the universe and see what effect Shepard's actions had on the galaxy. "

That would be the worst plot twist possible in such a well-crafted universe.

Year counting it pointless. We've only done that for what the last 2000 years? 
 
If we do follow the same paths than the humans from 50,000 years ago could've counted years exactly the same.

The Reapers wiped out the Dinosaurs!!!!! it all makes sense now.

There is a side quest in ME1 that reveals how the Protheans were watching the evolution of the early man. Stuff like this makes me wish the Mako was still part of ME2.
 

I forgot how awkward reading that text was - considering how important that seems to the Prothean mythos. Kind of reads like fanfic. 

It all takes place in Assassins Creed 2

Once again, they mention specific poets, Hiroshima and more. This is not even debatable.

Well human culture still prevails. Like that Sushi chef in the Citadel. 
 
Also the SSV Normandy y'know... might have something to do with our history. 
 
Just a guess though =p

No they couldn't of. Don't get Battlestar Galactica on me.

See it like this. How big are the chances that humans exist every time? And how big are the chances that we look identical every time?
 
I'd say very very slim. And seeing as they look like humans, I'd say they'd have to live in the future.

Anyone who's seen Watchmen can understand the concept of a cataclysmic worldwide event (Dr Manhattan/Reapers) in a world that still follows the same path as our own.

Then them being from earth makes no sense because the early humans were already there.

One of my (disproved) theories while playing ME1 through the first time was that the Reapers would wind up being ... humans. At least humans of some sort, with technology that had been lost. And that humans had been put down 50,000 years in the past, and that Shepard would have to choose between ending the cycle, or taking up the role of humans as conquerors once again. That fell apart pretty quickly once the mid-game hit, but it still struck me as an interesting idea. However, the idea of this all being in Earth's distant past seems unlikely given how much history we're given in-game. It's very clearly tied to humanity 200 years *from now*, give or take a few decades.

" A better gasp moment that has been stewing in my head, is that the tech used to bring back Shepard was salvaged tech from Sovereign. Making Shepard part reaper. "

" @Scalptre: While that's happening, aliens are actually playing pool with our universe which is really a cue ball for their giant pool table. "