Mass Effect 3.5B: Taste the Rainbow (Story and Ending Discussion; Spoilers!)

[Psyren]

Hm, I guess the issue is that I never actually believed that the reapers were incarnations of the reaped race. We have evidence to the contrary, in the callous manner Sovereign and Harbinger communicate with Shepard, but no evidence that the reapers are anything more than composites of the physical essence of the reaped beings, not their minds.

I wasn't sure either, but there is a rarely seen conversation with Legion in ME2 where he confirms this. (The whole thing is interesting, but the relevant bit is 1 minute in.)

No, we don't. Victory, Vigil, and Vendetta were assigned to different projects. It was Vigil that worked on the Conduit project, and that one's kaput. Victory may or may not be long dead. Only Vendetta remains, with it's vast wealth of now completely meaningless data.

Remember that the conduit project was completely sealed off so that the Reapers wouldn't find it. Vendetta know nothing of that project.

To put it bluntly, you have no idea what Vendetta does and doesn't know. Ilos may have been top secret, but the Crucible likely was too. My point is that it would be rather easy to handwave him having some knowledge of that technology.

And again, the Reapers themselves may still have the necessary information.

Or who knows, the great minds from across all species comprising the Crucible project could crack the secret themselves. It's not like they have anything more pressing to work on.