397 réponses à ce sujet

[Nightwriter]

KarumaK wrote...

I'd like to point out that you are listing only 11 failures, some of which were partial failures and one of which was a success.

You can't condemn a galaxy wide organization for 10 failures. Especially as you have no idea how many successes, and other failures, they've had in comparison.

10 is just a number. 11 is just a number.

Of course you cannot condemn an organization for a number. A number is meaningless.

It is like saying Ted Bundy was sentenced to death for the number 33.

You do not condemn an organization for a number. You condemn an organization for an atrocity, the value and enormity of which cannot be contained or quantified with a number. When the atrocities start to stack up, yes, it does mean something.

[Killjoy Cutter]

Gul Dukat: (Star Trek: DS9) He never agreed with the occupation of Bajor, but once he was placed in charge of the planet, he tried hard to make sure that the occupation was as bloodless as possible. Several atrocious things happened during his tenure that he did not authorize and actually tried to stop, and the Bajoran people blamed him nonetheless, resulting in 5 assasination attempts. He responded by killing 100 people, either rebels or people who agreed with the rebels politically and ideologically. By killing 100 instead of 1000, he showed that he, in fact, was somewhat merciful, and not a monster. If I were POTUS, and someone attempted to assassinate me, I'd probably take a similar retaliation against those who shared the beliefs of my would-be killer.

Luckily, you couldn't do so legally, and you'd be impeached for trying to order it.

Modifié par Killjoy Cutter, 29 juillet 2010 - 07:16 .

[angj57]

RiouHotaru wrote...

Exogeni and the Thorian Creeper
The only possible way that Cerberus could've gotten Creepers is if they either have plants inside of Exogeni, or if Exogeni itself is one of Cerberus' corporate fronts.  I'm inclined to believe the latter, because otherwise it makes almost no sense for Exogeni to do what they did.  To purposefully use the colonists as a test group like that is massively unethical.  Such a corporation trying that today would be committing corporate and financial suicide.  Why then would Exogeni take the risk of their operations being uncovered and their entire company ruined?  Not to mention there are several logs on the servers that talk about Cerberus.

I really don't think Exo Geni is a corporate front for Cerberus or that there is enough evidence to suggest that they are. Yes, what they did would ruin a company today if they did that and got caught, but that is because there are government regulations and standards. Feros is far away and tiny and no one is paying any attention. Had the Geth not attacked and Shepard not showed up, they would have gotten away with it. Exo Geni is arrogent; they don't think the project is going to fail so they don't think they have anything to worry about. To say that they didn't do it just because it's a bad idea doesn't make sense-- you could make the same argument that BP would never be careless about oil rig safety because it could cost the company billions of dollars, but we all know how that went. As to their motivation, it is obvious-- they see great profit potential in the Thorian, probably as a potentially lucrative weapon. I have no doubt that Cerberus was on their list of people who would pay a lot of money for whatever research they got out of the project, and it is clear that they did sell them samples, but that is a long way from proving that they are one and the same.

The whole Thorian plotline reminded me of the plotline of the original Alien movie-- that too was a company that wanted to retreive the alien sample for weapons research and it turned out to be an epically terrible idea. Although as I said in an earlier post I think the Thorian did justify study, just not in a secretive, profit-motivated way.

Anyway, I agree with most of your points, but I don't think you are justified by having Feros on the list.

[Cerberus Operative Ashley Williams]

Nightwriter wrote...

10 is just a number. 11 is just a number.

Of course you cannot condemn an organization for a number. A number is meaningless.

It is like saying Ted Bundy was sentenced to death for the number 33.

You do not condemn an organization for a number. You condemn an organization for an atrocity, the value and enormity of which cannot be contained or quantified with a number. When the atrocities start to stack up, yes, it does mean something.

I think I agree with this; however, our sample size of Cerberus activities is incredibly biased. In ME1 we followed a trail of Cerberus experiments that had run amuck. We're never going to be sent on a mission thats objective is: "Visit this Cerberus cell and notice how they are performing their experiments in a humane and lawful manner." We have been the street sweepers following the Cerberus parade sweeping up the horse s***. Because we never see the actual parade we think, "wow, all that results from Cerberus is piles of horse s***."

[thegreateski]

Cerberus Operative Ashley Williams wrote...
We have been the street sweepers following the Cerberus parade sweeping up the horse s***. Because we never see the actual parade we think, "wow, all that results from Cerberus is piles of horse s***."

An apt if somewhat disturbing analogy.

[Nightwriter]

Cerberus Operative Ashley Williams wrote...

Nightwriter wrote...

10 is just a number. 11 is just a number.

Of course you cannot condemn an organization for a number. A number is meaningless.

It is like saying Ted Bundy was sentenced to death for the number 33.

You do not condemn an organization for a number. You condemn an organization for an atrocity, the value and enormity of which cannot be contained or quantified with a number. When the atrocities start to stack up, yes, it does mean something.

I think I agree with this; however, our sample size of Cerberus activities is incredibly biased. In ME1 we followed a trail of Cerberus experiments that had run amuck. We're never going to be sent on a mission thats objective is: "Visit this Cerberus cell and notice how they are performing their experiments in a humane and lawful manner." We have been the street sweepers following the Cerberus parade sweeping up the horse s***. Because we never see the actual parade we think, "wow, all that results from Cerberus is piles of horse s***."

You know, you're right, and I think it's a problem.

Cerberus supporters can preach the "we don't know everything about Cerberus" thing (which is true) but in the end we can only judge the group by what the writers show us, which is only bad stuff.

[JGDD]

Throw_this_away wrote...

Shep worked with Cerberus because they gave him resources, and they were the only people that believed Shep, and the only people that had similar goals.  Yes TIM manipulated Shep... but My shep knows he is working with the devil. My shep also used TIM.  ****** for tat.

Shep worked with Cerberus because they brought him back from the dead. So now we have ghola-Shep instead of the original whose choice may have been to stay dead. We can't be sure.

I think that the real mind-fu@K will be coming in ME3 when we learn that the alliance has been secretly researching reaper tech from the recovered bits of sovergn (the writing was on the wall for that considering how it was mentioned that the salvage went missing...).  The writers set us up to hate cerberus at the end of ME2.  Everyone will want to run to the Alliance for help in ME3.... but they will be in for a ethical/moral surprise.

There are hints of this with one certain mission and I would be so pleased if BioWare tossed a curveball like this in. 

The Alliance isn't as naive or honorable as they are leading on.  They were just scared of Shep so they sent him off to hunt geth after ME1 to get them out of their hair as they rebuild and research the reapers.

It was the council's choice, not the Alliance. 

[Nightwriter]

I want us to learn that like 50 people died to get Cerberus the "cutting edge technology" that brought Shepard back to life.

That would put things in perspective for me. Then I would feel properly conflicted.

Hating Cerberus is too easy.

[Cerberus Operative Ashley Williams]

Nightwriter wrote...

I want us to learn that like 50 people died to get Cerberus the "cutting edge technology" that brought Shepard back to life.

That would put things in perspective for me. Then I would feel properly conflicted.

Hating Cerberus is too easy.

I think it's partially intentional. Cerberus comes across as partially maniacal in the game yet still has decent support in the ME community. If they were much more noble, they would not be interesting, and there would be no debating. I would hate that.

[dreman9999]

angj57 wrote...

RiouHotaru wrote...

Exogeni and the Thorian Creeper
The only possible way that Cerberus could've gotten Creepers is if they either have plants inside of Exogeni, or if Exogeni itself is one of Cerberus' corporate fronts.  I'm inclined to believe the latter, because otherwise it makes almost no sense for Exogeni to do what they did.  To purposefully use the colonists as a test group like that is massively unethical.  Such a corporation trying that today would be committing corporate and financial suicide.  Why then would Exogeni take the risk of their operations being uncovered and their entire company ruined?  Not to mention there are several logs on the servers that talk about Cerberus.

I really don't think Exo Geni is a corporate front for Cerberus or that there is enough evidence to suggest that they are. Yes, what they did would ruin a company today if they did that and got caught, but that is because there are government regulations and standards. Feros is far away and tiny and no one is paying any attention. Had the Geth not attacked and Shepard not showed up, they would have gotten away with it. Exo Geni is arrogent; they don't think the project is going to fail so they don't think they have anything to worry about. To say that they didn't do it just because it's a bad idea doesn't make sense-- you could make the same argument that BP would never be careless about oil rig safety because it could cost the company billions of dollars, but we all know how that went. As to their motivation, it is obvious-- they see great profit potential in the Thorian, probably as a potentially lucrative weapon. I have no doubt that Cerberus was on their list of people who would pay a lot of money for whatever research they got out of the project, and it is clear that they did sell them samples, but that is a long way from proving that they are one and the same.

The whole Thorian plotline reminded me of the plotline of the original Alien movie-- that too was a company that wanted to retreive the alien sample for weapons research and it turned out to be an epically terrible idea. Although as I said in an earlier post I think the Thorian did justify study, just not in a secretive, profit-motivated way.

Anyway, I agree with most of your points, but I don't think you are justified by having Feros on the list.

Your, right Exo geni is not Curberus. Curberus is just curberus, no false face covering it up,just may hats for them to choose from to wear and most of those hats don't even know they're being worn. Heck, TIM is just TIM, has no public face or idenity any more. He's more like a human Shadow broker.(This comfered in Retribution and no he is not THE SHADOWBROKER.)

[dreman9999]

Cerberus Operative Ashley Williams wrote...

Nightwriter wrote...

10 is just a number. 11 is just a number.

Of course you cannot condemn an organization for a number. A number is meaningless.

It is like saying Ted Bundy was sentenced to death for the number 33.

You do not condemn an organization for a number. You condemn an organization for an atrocity, the value and enormity of which cannot be contained or quantified with a number. When the atrocities start to stack up, yes, it does mean something.

I think I agree with this; however, our sample size of Cerberus activities is incredibly biased. In ME1 we followed a trail of Cerberus experiments that had run amuck. We're never going to be sent on a mission thats objective is: "Visit this Cerberus cell and notice how they are performing their experiments in a humane and lawful manner." We have been the street sweepers following the Cerberus parade sweeping up the horse s***. Because we never see the actual parade we think, "wow, all that results from Cerberus is piles of horse s***."

But we did see the parade and the flouts were crappy and then it set on fire and crashed in to the crowd killing people like any normal Curberus experament.

[Nightwriter]

Cerberus Operative Ashley Williams wrote...

Nightwriter wrote...

I want us to learn that like 50 people died to get Cerberus the "cutting edge technology" that brought Shepard back to life.

That would put things in perspective for me. Then I would feel properly conflicted.

Hating Cerberus is too easy.

I think it's partially intentional. Cerberus comes across as partially maniacal in the game yet still has decent support in the ME community. If they were much more noble, they would not be interesting, and there would be no debating. I would hate that.

As would I.

However, it seems insufficient to me that Cerberus is only successful when it has something to do with the good commander.

In other words, only when the story makes it necessary.

[Cerberus Operative Ashley Williams]

dreman9999 wrote...
But we did see the parade and the flouts were crappy and then it set on fire and crashed in to the crowd killing people like any normal Curberus experament.

I lol'd a little.

[thegreateski]

dreman9999 wrote...
But we did see the parade and the flouts were crappy and then it set on fire and crashed in to the crowd killing people like any normal Curberus experament.

Obviously they wanted to see if parade floats would make an effective weapon against the Reapers.

Modifié par thegreateski, 29 juillet 2010 - 08:21 .

[Throw_this_away]

justgimmedudedammit wrote...

Throw_this_away wrote...

Shep worked with Cerberus because they gave him resources, and they were the only people that believed Shep, and the only people that had similar goals.  Yes TIM manipulated Shep... but My shep knows he is working with the devil. My shep also used TIM.  ****** for tat.

Shep worked with Cerberus because they brought him back from the dead. So now we have ghola-Shep instead of the original whose choice may have been to stay dead. We can't be sure.

I think that the real mind-fu@K will be coming in ME3 when we learn that the alliance has been secretly researching reaper tech from the recovered bits of sovergn (the writing was on the wall for that considering how it was mentioned that the salvage went missing...).  The writers set us up to hate cerberus at the end of ME2.  Everyone will want to run to the Alliance for help in ME3.... but they will be in for a ethical/moral surprise.

There are hints of this with one certain mission and I would be so pleased if BioWare tossed a curveball like this in. 

The Alliance isn't as naive or honorable as they are leading on.  They were just scared of Shep so they sent him off to hunt geth after ME1 to get them out of their hair as they rebuild and research the reapers.

It was the council's choice, not the Alliance. 

my error.  When I said alliance... I ment council.  I think I have used thet term incorrectly a few times today.  

p.s. your shep works with Cerberus because they brought him back.  Mine does because I know I can make use of thrir resources to further my goals.  

[2papercuts]

angj57 wrote...

2papercuts wrote...

I was hoping that this was going to show why Cerberus are incompetent at everything.

This is why I get frustrated with Cerberus bashing threads. I fully agree with the assesment of their moral principles. I also believe there are serious accountability issues with them. But I don't get why everyone insists they are incompetent because of their failures. So, sigh, I'll make a list of sucesses.

Normandy SR-1
Cerberus pushed the Alliance to work with the Turians and develop stealth technology, even though we know there was oposition, like the admiral who thinks they should have built a cruiser instead. Humans gets Turian tech, and we all know that Normandy worked out pretty well.

EDI
For all their failures, they are pretty much the only people in the galaxy who built and AI and got it to do what they intended it to do. EDI saved the ship and is equiped with anti-Reaper weapons, although we don't know much about those yet. She seems like an unqualified and impressive sucess for me.

Shepard
The fact that the Collectors and the Shadow Broker wanted Shepard's body seems to have totally slipped the Alliance and Council intelligence networks. But they did, and Cerberus denied it to them. They also brought him back via Lazarus, which seems wise to me as he combined both the ability of fighting the Reapers with credibility of someone who is well known and respected by many powers that be.

Discovery of the Collector's Activities
The Illusive Man knows that the Collectors are behind the abductions long before the Alliance figures it out. We know this because Anderson admits that Kaiden/Ashley were sent to Horizon to investigate whether Cerberus was behind them, showing that they were wildly off the mark.

Derelict Reaper
While the Council is debating whether the Reapers even exist, Cerberus actually finds one. Yes their team dies, but not before finding and extracting the IFF, and as far as we know, everyone is suceptible to indoctrination, so the team's death may have been inevitable.

Terminus Systems Activities
Something has to be said for being the only organization willing to work in the Terminus Systems. The Council refuses to even send a stealth ship in their when the future of the galaxy is potentially at stake. Any activity involving the Omega 4 Relay and thus the Collector base would have been impossible under the Council.

There are probably more. Normandy SR-2 works pretty well, and I could have added that, for instance. This is a *bit* of a thread hijack, because the topic being debated was their crimes and not their competence, but in any "Cerberus bashing" thread this always comes up and I wanted to put in my two cents. I certainly don't consider myself pro-Cerberus, actually I am kind of revolted by them, but I do consider them the best way of fighting the Reapers precisely because of their sucesses, which people always seem to overlook or trivialize. I actually think what makes Mass Effect 2 cool is being forced to choose how to deal with an organization that is on the one hand an effective ally but on the other hand ruthless and borderline-evil. If they are evil and stupid, it makes the plot a lot less interesting and kind of cheapens the game's atmosphere.

the whole shepard thing with the Normandy and EDI seems to be the only thing Cerberus did right, which also includes the Discovery of the Collector's Activities. At everything else, they are incompetent . Although they found it, the Derelict Reaper blew up in their face, along with anything else they do.

[angj57]

2papercuts wrote...

the whole shepard thing with the Normandy and EDI seems to be the only thing Cerberus did right, which also includes the Discovery of the Collector's Activities. At everything else, they are incompetent . Although they found it, the Derelict Reaper blew up in their face, along with anything else they do.

I maintain that no science team could have dealt with the Derelict Reaper any better. What was gained by that operation-- the Reaper IFF and the ability to attack the Collector base FAR outweighs the loss of one science team, as callous as that may seem. A more cautious approach would have served no purpose-- the Collectors would have kept up their abductions, and when the decision was made to enter the Reaper, indoctrination would have still been a risk. The fact that there are casulties does NOT mean that it "blew up in their faces" anymore than the fact that there were casulties at Virmire meant that that operation was a failure for Shepard.

[scotchtape622]

But the science team didn't collect the IFF, Shepard did.

[Sajuro]

thegreateski wrote...

dreman9999 wrote...
But we did see the parade and the flouts were crappy and then it set on fire and crashed in to the crowd killing people like any normal Curberus experament.

Obviously they wanted to see if parade floats would make an effective weapon against the Reapers.

What happened to the dragon teeth and inevitable husks?

[angj57]

scotchtape622 wrote...

But the science team didn't collect the IFF, Shepard did.

It is left out on a desk for you. If Miranda is with you, she says something like "Looks like they did manage to retrieve it" or something like that. They did find it and retreive it, they just couldn't make themselves leave the Reaper.

[RiouHotaru]

angj57 wrote...

RiouHotaru wrote...

Exogeni and the Thorian Creeper
The only possible way that Cerberus could've gotten Creepers is if they either have plants inside of Exogeni, or if Exogeni itself is one of Cerberus' corporate fronts.  I'm inclined to believe the latter, because otherwise it makes almost no sense for Exogeni to do what they did.  To purposefully use the colonists as a test group like that is massively unethical.  Such a corporation trying that today would be committing corporate and financial suicide.  Why then would Exogeni take the risk of their operations being uncovered and their entire company ruined?  Not to mention there are several logs on the servers that talk about Cerberus.

I really don't think Exo Geni is a corporate front for Cerberus or that there is enough evidence to suggest that they are. Yes, what they did would ruin a company today if they did that and got caught, but that is because there are government regulations and standards. Feros is far away and tiny and no one is paying any attention. Had the Geth not attacked and Shepard not showed up, they would have gotten away with it. Exo Geni is arrogent; they don't think the project is going to fail so they don't think they have anything to worry about. To say that they didn't do it just because it's a bad idea doesn't make sense-- you could make the same argument that BP would never be careless about oil rig safety because it could cost the company billions of dollars, but we all know how that went. As to their motivation, it is obvious-- they see great profit potential in the Thorian, probably as a potentially lucrative weapon. I have no doubt that Cerberus was on their list of people who would pay a lot of money for whatever research they got out of the project, and it is clear that they did sell them samples, but that is a long way from proving that they are one and the same.

The whole Thorian plotline reminded me of the plotline of the original Alien movie-- that too was a company that wanted to retreive the alien sample for weapons research and it turned out to be an epically terrible idea. Although as I said in an earlier post I think the Thorian did justify study, just not in a secretive, profit-motivated way.

Anyway, I agree with most of your points, but I don't think you are justified by having Feros on the list.

My counter to this is simple: How did Cerberus get the Thorian Creepers you find at the base as part of the mission UNC: Hades' Dogs.  Those creepers had to come from Feros, which means at minimum, Exogeni has people in the company who are actually Cerberus agents.  And since EDI did state that Cerberus uses corporate fronts to fund themselves, doesn't it make sense if Exogeni was a Cerberus corporation?  It would certainly explain why a company would take such a ridiculous financial and political risk like experimenting on the colonists.  Even with the alien analogy, I just can't see a Corporate CEO looking at this and going "Yeah, let's use the colonists, no one will find out what we're doing!"

I mean, maybe it's just me, but that comes off as a massive violation of common sense.

[Asheer_Khan]

I wouldn't call retriving of Shpeard's body from Shadow Broker "claws" as Cerberus succes...

On the contrary... according to Redemption comic TiM's behavior during entire Omega part of Shepard's body history is very questionable.
He have there in off own operatives to prevent deal between Blue Suns and SB agent regarding Shepard... but he did NOTHING to stop that deal.... more, when SB agent leaved Omega TiM gives Miranda direct order to PASS HIM BY despite fact that Cerberus did have in off ships at orbit to stop that agent and retrive body.

I would say whatever his motives were he undertakes rahter high risk gamble without 100% chance of success because Liara could NOT return from SB hideout after all and Shepard would be lost once for all.
And that's why this put in rather big question his PR speech after Lazarus how important Shepard is for Humanity and other pro cerberus propaganda crap...

That's why he don't deserve a single credit of gratitude for retriving Shep's body and only person who deserve such is LIARA!.

Modifié par Asheer_Khan, 29 juillet 2010 - 09:47 .

[mosor]

2papercuts wrote...

the whole shepard thing with the Normandy and EDI seems to be the only thing Cerberus did right, which also includes the Discovery of the Collector's Activities. At everything else, they are incompetent . Although they found it, the Derelict Reaper blew up in their face, along with anything else they do.

Correction: The only things we're currently aware of that they did right. You don't become a feared organization with tons of capital by being inept.

[EffectedByTheMasses]

mosor wrote...

2papercuts wrote...

the whole shepard thing with the Normandy and EDI seems to be the only thing Cerberus did right, which also includes the Discovery of the Collector's Activities. At everything else, they are incompetent . Although they found it, the Derelict Reaper blew up in their face, along with anything else they do.

Correction: The only things we're currently aware of that they did right. You don't become a feared organization with tons of capital by being inept.

^This.

Also, Considering so many people hate Cerberus so much, and the fact that they were capable of building the Normandy SR-2 and EDI, and reserrecting Shepard on top of that makes it hard for me to believe that they are complete failures. In this regard  think Bioware may have screwed up in trying to make Cerberus look like the 'evil' terrorist group that I assume it was initially pictured to be, instead making them seem incompetent as well.

Besides, wouldn't it be unfair to people who chose the Renegade ending for ME2 if Cerberus did turn out to be a complete, utterly incompetent organization? And if they do and for those of you who make think "Well it was those players' faults for making a stupid decision", well if it was a stupid decision then why did Bioware include it?

Personally, based on their failures that are shown in the games, I don't trust Cerberus further than I could throw them, but solely in ME2 at least, their intentions and indeed their results seem more or less right.

[mosor]

RiouHotaru wrote...



My counter to this is simple: How did Cerberus get the Thorian Creepers you find at the base as part of the mission UNC: Hades' Dogs.  Those creepers had to come from Feros, which means at minimum, Exogeni has people in the company who are actually Cerberus agents.

They probably did have agents in exogeni, or exogeni sold them the creepers at a profit. Big busines, even these days is riddled with corperate espionage and shady dealings.

 And since EDI did state that Cerberus uses corporate fronts to fund themselves, doesn't it make sense if Exogeni was a Cerberus corporation?  

That's a big assumption backed by little evidence. Especially since what I wrote above are more likely scenarios.

It would certainly explain why a company would take such a ridiculous financial and political risk like experimenting on the colonists.  Even with the alien analogy, I just can't see a Corporate CEO looking at this and going "Yeah, let's use the colonists, no one will find out what we're doing!"

Corporations have done even stupider and more amoral things in the persuit of profit. Corperations have  psychopathic souls. The bottom line is all that matters. They did a cost benefit analysis and concluded that the potential for big profits is worth the risk.

I mean, maybe it's just me, but that comes off as a massive violation of common sense.

Wouldn't be the first time that could be said about corperations. Just look at how BP and the oil leak. I could go on with other financial entities, but that would take me all day to write.