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[Arijharn]

Pacifien wrote...

Arijharn wrote...
Holding TIM to every bad thing that Cerberus does is sorta disingenious though. If I came over and killed your dog/cat/ferret/pet I would hope that you wouldn't hold my parents responsible... you'd hold me.

Depends on if your parents gave you the knife and said "We could do with a dead pet around here."

But TIM has never done this. Even if he was to assume that Cerberus is staggeringly inept.

[Sajuro]

Arijharn wrote...

Pacifien wrote...
But I doubt the Illusive Man ever recruits anyone with a particularly honorable moral code.

He 'recruits' Miranda and Jacob... he can recruit 'paragon' Shephard too.

I may be biased because I like Miranda a lot, but she's not what I'd call a morally bankrupt character by any stretch.

Miranda certaintly isn't honorable. Though she isn't morally bankrupt, she's not that good of a person.

[Pacifien]

Arijharn wrote...

Pacifien wrote...
But I doubt the Illusive Man ever recruits anyone with a particularly honorable moral code.

He 'recruits' Miranda and Jacob... he can recruit 'paragon' Shephard too.

I may be biased because I like Miranda a lot, but she's not what I'd call a morally bankrupt character by any stretch.

True. Thing about Miranda and Jacob is that they know Cerberus has done questionable work in the past. Miranda probably believes that one needs to make a few sacrifices for the mission, but I get the impression she's never understood just how far the Illusive Man is willing to go in that regard. She's taken aback by the thought that he sent the Normandy into a trap with the Collector ship, and she insists that the Teltin facility must have been rogue for the work they did. She's also against keeping the Collector base.

As for Jacob, when he tells Shepard about Cerberus being remembered in a greater light if they succeed in taking the Collectors out, I'm given the impression that Jacob has been led to believe that Cerberus is trying to do better than their reputation would indicate. I imagine Miranda had a lot to do with him believing that, though.

The Illusive Man also picks a crew for the Normandy that either has a vested interest in stopping the colony attacks or are particularly loyal to Shepard. Likely not morally bankrupt either.

I give the Illusive Man credit for being incredibly intelligent, though. If he wants to create a Geth/Human VI interface, he's not going for scientists who work by a strict scientific method. Even Miranda probably used some drastic means to rebuild Shepard, led by a strong belief (either her own or the Illusive Man's) that Shepard was key to stopping the Reapers.

However, I don't give the Illusive Man credit for being wise.

[Pacifien]

Arijharn wrote...

Pacifien wrote...

Arijharn wrote...
Holding TIM to every bad thing that Cerberus does is sorta disingenious though. If I came over and killed your dog/cat/ferret/pet I would hope that you wouldn't hold my parents responsible... you'd hold me.

Depends on if your parents gave you the knife and said "We could do with a dead pet around here."

But TIM has never done this. Even if he was to assume that Cerberus is staggeringly inept.

He does this to an extent. He gives a cell a directive. He demands progress. I don't know what happens to them if they fail to meet whatever progress he expects, but it seems to drive some cells to drastic measures to meet his demands.

Bring back Shepard by any means possible. Create the most powerful biotic by any means possible. Create a means to control the Geth by any means possible. He gives people a directive. He expects them to meet it. They feel compelled to meet it. And if they go too far, the Illusive Man can simply wash his hands of the deed and say he never told them exactly how to go about it, so it's not his fault if they went too far.

Why so many Cerberus cells seem to go to such drastic measures has to have something to do with who the Illusive Man is recruiting and what he's telling them to do.

[Inverness Moon]

That inept organization is the reason you're able to play Mass Effect 2. That makes up for quite a lot in m yopinion.



I'm sure you hear more about what bad things Cerberus does and how they screw up more than the better things they do or succeed at, like instigating the creation of the first Normandy, building the second, reviving Shepard. You only heard about those because they were directly related to the plot.

[Pacifien]

Had the first Normandy never been destroyed, I wonder what the Illusive Man's plans would have been for the second one.

[huntrrz]

Pacifien wrote...

Why so many Cerberus cells seem to go to such drastic measures has to have something to do with who the Illusive Man is recruiting and what he's telling them to do.

EXACTLY.  Once is an accident.  Twice is coincidence.  Three times is a pattern.  There's a systemic problem within Cerberus and TIM is either willfully ignorant of it, does not want to fix it, or it is by his own design.

Mass Effect 4 - The Hunt for The Illusive Man...  (Or a really big ME3 expansion.  Make it so, Bioware...)

[Nightwriter]

Pacifien wrote...

I had always gotten the feeling that the Illusive Man only cared that the results further his goals. It appears when he asks for an update from the various cells, he simply wants to know they've made progress. That's why some of the cells go through such extremes to meet the Illusive Man's demands. Don't know what he does to them if they fail.
It doesn't matter if the experiments blow up in their face either, so long as the Illusive Man can salvage something from the data. Take Jack and the Teltin facility -- a failure for what they might have been trying to achieve specifically, but they salvaged the data to use when they infiltrated the Ascension Project and the Illusive Man found a use for Jack eventually.
Also think he takes a bit of a willfully oblivious approach to the details. Have someone call him out on the less savory aspects of the experiments, he can point the finger at the ones directly involved in the research. He only gave them a goal, it was up to their own moral code on how to go about it. But I doubt the Illusive Man ever recruits anyone with a particularly honorable moral code.

I get the impression TIM lets his cells do just about anything in the pursuit of producing something worthwhile, and if the cell f*cks up in that pursuit and the whole thing blows up in their faces he cuts them off, amputates the cell, and calls it rogue.

[Sajuro]

huntrrz wrote...

Pacifien wrote...

Why so many Cerberus cells seem to go to such drastic measures has to have something to do with who the Illusive Man is recruiting and what he's telling them to do.

EXACTLY.  Once is an accident.  Twice is coincidence.  Three times is a pattern.  There's a systemic problem within Cerberus and TIM is either willfully ignorant of it, does not want to fix it, or it is by his own design.

Mass Effect 4 - The Hunt for The Illusive Man...  (Or a really big ME3 expansion.  Make it so, Bioware...)

The Illusive man is walking around in his room when a communication from
Shepherd comes in. "Shepherd, what do you have to sa?" Sees it is
actually Tali who flips him off "What? where is shepherd?" -gets sniped
in the leg-
Shepherd walks up with a highpowered sniper rifle and
Illusive man asks "What the hell Shepherd, we had a DEAL."
Shepherd
reloads "Yeah," he aims it at the illusive man's head, bringing up the
trigger choices between renegade and paragon
Pulls Paragon
"Deal's
off" Shepherd shoots Illusive Man in the head. "Tali, get Joker to pick
me up, we have some dog hunting to do."

[JohnnyBeGood2]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

STG wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...
Since when has Udina ever been depicted as paranoid and delusional?

If you kill the Rachni queen Udina makes a remark: "We can't have mind controlling bugs running around my galaxy."
I'd say that calling entire galaxy "his" is pretty delusional.

...you're a semantic idiot if you think that's proof of delusion. People reguarly identify themselves with things they do not own: my people, my nation, my god.

Dean, Shand.... go easy on the "idiot" call.

[incinerator950]

Once again the fire rises to eat the topic's purpose.



That said, I'm going to start wearing Cerberus Assault Armor, and I would change my funky pink camo N7 gear out if I remembered the damn color scheme for Cerberus.

[lovgreno]

Nightwriter wrote...
I get the impression TIM lets his cells do just about anything in the pursuit of producing something worthwhile, and if the cell f*cks up in that pursuit and the whole thing blows up in their faces he cuts them off, amputates the cell, and calls it rogue.

And it's remarkable that almost every cell becomes a "rogue" cell sooner or later. Usualy the minute after it's created.

Ignore those who resorts to insults like "idiot". They clearly are not interested in seeing things from a different perspective than their own. They have no reason to think outside their superiour and smart box. Why should they listen to the reasons of idiots? They have nothing to contribute to a discussion.

[Mangalores]

Dean_the_Young wrote...
...
Typical old empires worked quite well, historically: the greats reason for the falling of empires was outside attack weakening them. More importantly, the more successful typical old empires were successful because they did tolerate and work with local cultures. What we know of as the Roman Empire included many regions that would have been surprised to be called Roman, as opposed to Roman Allies.
...

This is a bit off topic but pretty much all empires reeled under the weight of their responsibilities and internal conflicts and dynamics. They succumbed only under external threat long after their economic and social base which had allowed them to gobble up so much territory had eroded (that's the reason others could not necessarily duplicate such success). By the time the barbarians knocked on her doors Rome had suffered through centuries of civil war, internal strife, ursurpers, local uprisings, plagues, depopulation and economic crisis. That's why the civiliatory gap between barbarian tribesmen and Rome wasn't that big anymore and the appeal of local politicians greater than that of an ineffective central government.

Romans had other fancy ideas, too: Kill everybody who diverts from submission to Rome. The others may live unless they break the rules of not submitting to Rome in which case the former sentence took effect again. Rinse repeat, at some point all who remain are those happy to be Roman...

There was a big change in the cultural structure of Rome from the republic to late imperial time. In the beginnings there was very clear distinction of who was Roman and who was not. By the end of it every citizen (= free man of certain status) became a Roman citizen supported by the fact that droves of later Roman emperors were not of Roman descent at all.

Peaceful cultural domination without exterminating the majority of the native population (standard procedure back in the days of empires) is extremely rare

[Asheer_Khan]

lovgreno wrote...

Nightwriter wrote...
I get the impression TIM lets his cells do just about anything in the pursuit of producing something worthwhile, and if the cell f*cks up in that pursuit and the whole thing blows up in their faces he cuts them off, amputates the cell, and calls it rogue.

And it's remarkable that almost every cell becomes a "rogue" cell sooner or later. Usualy the minute after it's created.

Ignore those who resorts to insults like "idiot". They clearly are not interested in seeing things from a different perspective than their own. They have no reason to think outside their superiour and smart box. Why should they listen to the reasons of idiots? They have nothing to contribute to a discussion.

Some people here on this forum are fall too deep in love whit Timmy's blue "eyes" to accept simple fact that this man DO known about everything what's happening within his organization (from Akuze till Overlord) and all those denials and so called "rogue cells" are plain PR mumbo jumbo to gain sympathy for Cerberus (what in many cases... sadly work).

Slight off topic but related to this subject when i finished reading thread about Overlord final choices i was stunned that some people there were ready to continue this nightmare... for rather very questionable gains in return.

Did we need to lossing rest of human dignity for a brief technological gains?
And moreover... don't tell me that whole project to control Geth was designed to assigned them later on as house servants...