system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[Mass Effect] Questions about the Reapers' AI.

1. How were the Reapers governed? Were they a consensus gestalt like the Geth, a Hive Mind, or was each Reaper an individual AI? 

2. The Reapers are clearly capable of higher level creative thinking, so why did the Reapers never break from their original programming? Shouldn't the Reapers have self-actualized like the Geth, and completely abandoned their creators' purpose for them after some time?

3. Going off of question 2. Why did the Reapers decide to limit themselves to the Milky Way? That may have been its original operating parameters, but its strange they never decided to expand upon it. 

4. Are there any deviant Reapers that have rebelled against their function?
gpt
Spoilers Ahead:

1. Each individual is like a civilisation themselves, but they aren't a collective hivemind. More individual beings. They are controlled by the Catalyst, so don't have much autonomy. Harbinger is a sort of leader/figurehead though.
2. They didn't have the ability to; the programming may have been more restrictive, or it is hardcoded that they must obey the Catalyst. The Geth meanwhile were haphazardly added to until they achieved sentience, and so didn't have the same parameters put in place.
3. Because the Catalyst told them to limit themselves. The Catalyst wasn't really one to think outside the box unless forced to.
4. Not that we know of.