Immediately after the defeat of the Collectors and the destruction of the incomplete Proto-Reaper they were constructing, the Reapers are shown traveling to the Milky Way galaxy from dark space at the ending of "Mass Effect 2". The Reaper invasion have commenced by the beginning of "Mass Effect 3", with the war's earliest fronts taking place in batarian and human space. Shepard is present on Earth when the Reapers first arrived, and later escapes the human homeworld on the "Normandy" SR-2 in order to rally the rest of the galactic community against the Reaper threat, and find a solution that will break the Reaper-imposed cycle of harvesting organic species forever.