Zulu_DFA wrote...
The myth about Cerberus' ineptitude is defeated by the sheer fact that they've had you reach the point of making the C-Base choice.
Cerberus doesn't have to be entirely inept or entirely brilliant. They've had great success in espionage/sabotage and they manage to build things reasonably well but their research techniques are pretty terrible from what we're shown. Getting to the base relied mostly on Shepard and his (mostly non-Cerberus, certainly not standard Cerberus) team along with Cerberus provided intel (an area that they're much better at). You could argue that they had some success with the Lazarus project (although it almost failed at the end and still lost all but two members of the team) but that's an exception and it was mostly developing new tech or expanding on existing tech while many of their failures were when they tried to analyse alien technology (which is what they'd be doing with the Collector Base).
Dean_the_Young wrote...
How did the Reapers 'just leave' the Collector Base behind?
You claim it on the same grounds you claim the Collector Particle beam, EDI, and the Thannix: you killed them and took it against their will, robbing their graves (and corpses) for your own advantage.
You're able to blow it up without bringing any explosives, what's stopping them from destroying it (while still holding the control centre no less)? That could be a plot hole, an oddity/oversight in design or it could be deliberate if the Reapers have other ideas or simply feel that leaving the base to you is safe enough (in fairness, they are a little arrogant at times).
The Derelict Reaper wasn't "just" left behind either and it didn't exactly prove to be entirely safe.
Dean_the_Young wrote...
You've seen evidence of, like, what: eight known operations? Overlord, Teltin, Lazarus, Derilect Reaper, Akuze, Super Soldier, and Rachni? That's not a large sample at all: that's like looking at Shepard's crew for a measurement of the galaxy.
And of those projects, Overlord only ultimately fails if Shepard chooses so, even rogue Teltin produced Jack and biotic advancement research, the Derilect Reaper team did find the darn thing and extracted the IFF for later pickup, the Super Soldier project only blew up if Shepard chose to blow it up, the Rachni failed for reasons that couldn't be confirmed beforehand, and nothing suggests Akuze was a failure from the Alliance's perspective. And all costs total, Lazarus still cheated death and stopped the Collectors and outweighed all other costs combined, none of which produced galactic disasters of any appreciable sort.
It's a little unreasonable to expect Shepard to just assume that everything else they did worked out perfectly and that they did infact have a lot of success producing excellent results. Cerberus hasn't produced anything else to help us take on the Reapers, there's really no evidence that the failures Shepard has seen aren't indicative of their usual efforts (and we know that Cerberus doesn't take on too many projects at once so it's reasonable to think that 8 projects would make a good sample).
Shepard stopping the Collectors wasn't exactly a research project, bringing Shepard back was the only research part of the Lazarus Project and it ended with Shepard having to personally fight their way out of a dangerous situation.
The IFF was pure luck (they didn't know about it before they'd been been turned to Husks), as was Jack's re-emergence and contribution to the team. The Teltin project killed numerous Biotics that could have been useful in fighting later and the research upgrade was only found when Shepard visited the site (probably there more for gameplay purposes but if you assume it's genuinely there in story terms then it shows Cerberus missed worthwhile results of a project for years after it's conclusion). A project failing shouldn't automatically result in the death of most/all of the staff working on it but this seems to be the case in most Cerberus projects, they just don't seem to take enough safety precautions (even if you set aside their dangerous and unethical practices in the first place).
Fair enough if you think the Collector Base project would go similarly to other projects but, as you say, nothing there has produced galaxy saving results so why should the Collector Base be any different? If they use their usual reckless research techniques they'll likely get as far as scratching the surface of what could be found in the Collector Base before Shepard has to come along and blow things up. If the Collector Base is capable of producing more beneficial results with successful research then what is to say it's not also capable of producing more disastrous results if things go wrong?
Dean_the_Young wrote...
A dead scientists produces no more results, but the results he/she produced before dying can easily offset the difference. That's a evaluation decision, not an inherency: slow and safe is not always better, and especially not in a time-limited crisis.
The best results we've had from studying Reaper technology have come from "slow" and careful research (EDI, the Thanix Cannon), reckless techniques have given minimal results and usually end up with losing the potential technology or major setbacks in research anyway. The reckless techniques used by Cerberus are by no means guaranteed to give better results, nor are they guaranteed to give faster results.
Dean_the_Young wrote...
Risks of Cerberus failure and abuse somehow equaling risks of Reaper victory... still not balanced.
If the Reapers manage to take control of the Collector Base or otherwise use it to derail our plans then it could also contribute to their victory. We know the Reapers can be destroyed in conventional warfare, we have other sources of technology that don't rely on a group that has proven to be dangerous and reckless and we have options other than the Collector Base (which isn't guaranteed to give anything beneficial either way). You're looking at the choice as "win" or "lose" and frankly, both options could give either outcome based on what we know (or more likely will only be part of the equation).
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