1342 réponses à ce sujet

[ExtremeOne]

didymos1120 wrote...

ExtremeOne wrote...

Hackett knew what was on that base in arrival .  

What's your evidence?  Just asserting this over and over does not a convincing case make.

  



simple if he did not know then why did he mention the reaper item that was on the base to Shepard. of course he knew. I bet the alliance has been lieing their ass off all this time . they know more than tell us. I also be bioware will not have a legit story for Cerberus in 3 

[008Zulu]

Dean_the_Young wrote...
A rather flawed analogy.

The American government creates the CIA, uses the CIA in all number of operations for decades, and the CIA goes rogue.

Is the American government responsible for the actions of the CIA during the decades the CIA was not rogue? Of course.

So then America is worse than those that commited the crimes, for having created them?

[008Zulu]

Bad King wrote...
The Alliance recruited pirates (Lord Darius) to fight the Batarians.
They were almost certainly aware of all of Cerberus's unethical acts before the split.
They are hiding dangerous info from the Council (Keiji's Greybox).
They cover up all of Shepard's warnings about the reapers, refuse to acknowledge them as a threat, do almost nothing to deal with the collectors and even try and arrest Shepard.
They allowed Conatix to take biotic children to Gagarin Station and pretty much abuse them.
They use the corsairs to undertake dodgy missions.

On top of this the Alliance still has a lot of links with Cerberus.

The Alliance are dodgier than a lot of people think.

Try to remember that the scope is limited to the first two games.

1- When and which game did this take place?
2- Be certain, else it doesn't count.
3- What proof that this info is actually dangerous?
4- The council covered it up, the Alliance (Hackett and Anderson) believe him
5- When and which game did this take place?
6- When and which game did this take place?

Who has connections in Cerberus and to what extent have they used them?

[Someone With Mass]

ExtremeOne wrote...

simple if he did not know then why did he mention the reaper item that was on the base to Shepard. of course he knew. I bet the alliance has been lieing their ass off all this time . they know more than tell us. I also be bioware will not have a legit story for Cerberus in 3 

That's not evidence, that's retarded assumptions.

[Moiaussi]

Saphra Deden wrote...

Once again, Alliance crimes:

Kinatix and its Biotic Acclimation Camp. Biotic gifted children were "encouraged" to submit to an evaluation. They were actually "hauled in". The training her was brutal with the kids being physically abused. It was shutdown when it caused a diplomatic incident. Only one step below Teltin and it had similar results.

You have it backwards. Kaiden corrects himself. He initially says 'hauled in', but then concedes that he is being unfair and uses the official line. A trainer went out of line, but paid for it with his life. Kaiden, who was actually there, doesn't hold the grudge you seem to.

The nuclear armed scouting probes sent around the galaxy during the First Contact War. The Alliance kept this secret from the Council for decades and later Admiral Hackett used humanity's only Spectre to keep the secret buried. This was nearly a catastrophe as the weapon fell into the hands of pirates. If the Council ever got wind the Alliance would face censure.

Which is completely rediculous when you consider every warship regardless of nationality has an antimatter drive core, a lot more potentially destructive than any of those probes. The STG scout vessel sent to Vermire had a nuclear drive core. Shepard marks how many uranium deposts? Nuclear weapons are actually relatively easy to build, if you don't mine lowish yield dirty bombs. The concern was more that the Turians might not like the thought of nuclear booby trapped probes and might try to make the case they were intended as offensive rather than defensive charges.

Ambassador Anita Goyle suggested to Donald Anderson that he may need to kill a Council Spectre in order to keep the secret Alliance A.I. research facility on Sidon secret. This research broke Council law.

And Ambassador Udina locks down the Normandy. Again, individual actions don't equate to national policy.

The Alliance is apparently involved in research of some kind related to Reapers. The nature of this research is unclear, however we know that it is sensitive enough that if made public it could spark a war. This secret was uncovered by Kasumi and her cohort but the Alliance of-course has still kept it secret from the galaxy at large.

We were told that various factions ended up with pieces of Sovereign. Some of those led to the Turian development of the Thanix cannon. The Reapers are being kept secret from the public to avert widespread panic, that isn't news. That isn't the same as being kept secret from other Council members.

If Shepard slaughtered the cultists on Presrop the Alliance covered for him. It is worth noting that they first took notice of this group because of their leader's anti-Alliance stance. So much for free speech, huh?

It wasn't merely an anti-Alliance stance. The officers were killed by "Father Kyle" and his cultists for 'speaking blasphemy.' Free speech ends when it becomes active sedition.

When Shepard was sent to free Chairman Burns from the biotic terrorists Hackett made it clear that the Alliance wanted a message sent, even if it meant killing the Chairman.

Again, the terrorists had kidnapped a prominent politician. Don't treat them as saints. Shepard gets praised if he situation can be resolved peacefully.

On Torfan it is implied (at least by Shepard) that the Alliance wanted a bloodbath to teach the batarians a lesson. It was "retaliation". Tellingly, Shepard was never brought up on charges for war crimes.

Torfan is harder to defend. The only analogy I can think of would be the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, both civilian targets, using nuclear weapons. It was a decisive enough victory that the Batarians backed off. As such it arguably did have legitimate military value. Note that I personally question the value of bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It should also be noted that although they had surrendered, the Batarians were combatants, and the Alliance had taken tremendous casualties as well. Also, Torfan was in retaliation for the Blitz, which was an attack on Elysium, a civilian target. The Batarians and Terminus pirates escallated the war first.

The Alliance set up Darius, a pirate warlord, as a puppet in the Attican Traverse/Skyllian Verge to stabilize the region. However when valuable eezo deposits were uncovered in his territory and he refused to give the Alliance unrestricted access Admiral Hackett had him murdered. Even worse, if Shepard refused to kill Darius, the Alliance agreed to help Darius manufacture red sand.

Darius was a classic 'enemy of my enemy.' In this case the enemy was the Batarians. With that enemy gone, Darius shouldn't have automaticly assumed a continued friendship. This is especially true since Darius seems to be someone who would normally be an enemy in and of himself. And he wasn't set up to 'stabalize the region' but to counter the Batarian presence.The Alliance could have simply ceased trade, but keep in mind that this was space the Alliance officially claims (hence the desire to have the Batarians out). The ethics are questionable, but the options as to how to deal with Darius, who had worn out his welcome, were limited.

The Alliance supported a covert plan to destroy a batarian relay, an act which would wipe out several batarian military bases and an entire colony with a population of more than 300,000.

I am pretty sure the mission was to rescue one scientist, not to do anything of the sort. It ended up going that way to stop the Reapers, but how was that the original mission? At any rate, the mission was never to blow up the relay just to get back at the Batarians.

Am I forgetting anything? Now none of this justifies anything Cerberus does. However it does give us a better context. Cerberus really isn't much worse than the Alliance or any other group.

There is a major difference which you seem to be dismissing though, namely context. It is much easier to understand the Alliance reasoning in your examples, and to make a case for their actions being justified. With respect to Cerberus, we sort of are just taking TIM's word for it. Also, you seem to be prone to exaggeration with respect to Alliance examples.

[DPSSOC]

008Zulu wrote...

Bad King wrote...
The Alliance recruited pirates (Lord Darius) to fight the Batarians.
They were almost certainly aware of all of Cerberus's unethical acts before the split.
They are hiding dangerous info from the Council (Keiji's Greybox).
They cover up all of Shepard's warnings about the reapers, refuse to acknowledge them as a threat, do almost nothing to deal with the collectors and even try and arrest Shepard.
They allowed Conatix to take biotic children to Gagarin Station and pretty much abuse them.
They use the corsairs to undertake dodgy missions.

On top of this the Alliance still has a lot of links with Cerberus.

The Alliance are dodgier than a lot of people think.

Try to remember that the scope is limited to the first two games.

1- When and which game did this take place?
2- Be certain, else it doesn't count.
3- What proof that this info is actually dangerous?
4- The council covered it up, the Alliance (Hackett and Anderson) believe him
5- When and which game did this take place?
6- When and which game did this take place?

1 - Mass Effect 1 Renegade Mission (Get a certain amount of Renegade points mission unlocks, similar Paragon mission)
2 - The Alliance is a military organization they would not allow a unit (even a black-ops unit) to run without knowing what they were up to.  They may not know all the specifics but somebody in the Alliance brass would have known the broad strokes of their activities.
3 - People killed for it, Keiji himself (the only character to actually view the data) warn Kasumi that it's dangerous and could harm the Alliance.
4 - Hacket and Anderson are not the Alliance.  The Alliance government not only covered up the Reapers they also covered up his death, utilized him as a marketing gimmick, and, if nothing else, have allowed the Council to slander the name of a hero without response.
5 - ME1 Kaidan talks about his time at BAaT.  The Alliance let that happen.
6 - ME2 right off Lazarus before Freedoms Progress Jacob talks about the Corsairs, a group used to carry out missions that fall outside Alliance jurisdiction (and as such are illegal).  Like Cerberus it was set up so if ever discovered the Alliance could claim no part in it.

[gosimmons]

I think things like the attack on the Migrant Fleet and assassinations of Alliance were definitlely reprehensible. But I have trouble seeing the whole organization as evil.

TIM's ruthless, but the intel and resources he's given you has saved lives. And he wasn't in charge of the terrible projects like Overlord, or Jack's biotic camp (as far as we know anyway). Can't say if he'd do anything to stop those projects though. And he's probably funded worse things from what we've heard, so it's hard to say how I feel about him.

Other people like Jacob and Engineer Kenneth obviously aren't evil. They just saw Cerberus as the only group willing to do something about a threat everyone else was denying.

[General User]

michaelrsa wrote...

In regards to the humans outside the Alliance I really don't give a **** about them. What reasonable excuse could a person have for leaving the Alliance? Based on what the game tell us I can't really see the Alliance as being any more unbearable as living in a first world nation, which is bearable as hell.

As a person who grew up in a poorer nation I'll say right now that wanting to leave the safety of the wealthier nations because of you don't like the way things are run is down right stupid. Sure, you have to give up some minor freedoms with every goverment but in the end you are guaranteed greater safety.

Is that right?

[General User]

@DPSSOC


In fairness, Jacob also mentions that the Corsairs were tied down by Alliance red-tape, so I’m not sure how good an example of independent operators they really are. I'm just saying.

[DPSSOC]

True. Still it's the Alliance setting up an organization to do illegal work. This isn't the STG where the government openly says, "This is our covert ops/black ops unit." and they go about doing what they do, this is the Alliance attempting to pull the same BS as the Batarians, funding privateers (essentially) to do work they can't get caught doing.

[Moiaussi]

DPSSOC wrote...

1 - Mass Effect 1 Renegade Mission (Get a certain amount of Renegade points mission unlocks, similar Paragon mission)
2 - The Alliance is a military organization they would not allow a unit (even a black-ops unit) to run without knowing what they were up to.  They may not know all the specifics but somebody in the Alliance brass would have known the broad strokes of their activities.
3 - People killed for it, Keiji himself (the only character to actually view the data) warn Kasumi that it's dangerous and could harm the Alliance.
4 - Hacket and Anderson are not the Alliance.  The Alliance government not only covered up the Reapers they also covered up his death, utilized him as a marketing gimmick, and, if nothing else, have allowed the Council to slander the name of a hero without response.
5 - ME1 Kaidan talks about his time at BAaT.  The Alliance let that happen.
6 - ME2 right off Lazarus before Freedoms Progress Jacob talks about the Corsairs, a group used to carry out missions that fall outside Alliance jurisdiction (and as such are illegal).  Like Cerberus it was set up so if ever discovered the Alliance could claim no part in it.

1) See my other post

2) Cerberus seems to have been founded (or at least concieved) back when the Alliance was only running under a charter, before it developed a formal parliament. That means Cerberus could have pretty much any structure and may have 'gone off the grid' only when politicians woke up and realized they had better ensure some accountability.

3) Proof of the Reaper's existance would count in that category, since 'widespread panic' is not only a believable outcome, but one it would be wise to avoid. Alternatively, weapons developed based on Reaper tech (such as the Thanix cannon) would be very dangerous to the Alliance in the wrong hands. Keep in mind that Keiji was killed by an arms dealer.

4) Make up your mind. Did they allow slander or prop him up as a hero? And how, precisely, did they know he was dead? He was believed dead, but he did turn up alive again, didn't he? You can argue that they used him as a marketing gimmick, but isn't that a different way of believing in him? And as for slander, Shepard was indeed working with Cerberus. Cerberus stacked the deck to make it seem like he had been with them longer, but that isn't hard to do when a ressurrection is involved.

5) He does, but he also talks about it without regrets for the program. He does have regrets over his lack of control.

6) As another poster mentioned, the Corsair missions were limited in scope. Jacob, who is not keen on Cerberus excesses felt the Corairs didn't go far enough.

[General User]

DPSSOC wrote...

True. Still it's the Alliance setting up an organization to do illegal work. This isn't the STG where the government openly says, "This is our covert ops/black ops unit." and they go about doing what they do, this is the Alliance attempting to pull the same BS as the Batarians, funding privateers (essentially) to do work they can't get caught doing.

Now that’s a bit much, I mean if the Corsairs were doing the same things as the batarians, ie taking slaves and bombing colonies, I imagine Jacob’s objection would have been more… strenuous (ie involving bullets).

There's a pretty big difference between covert ops and illegal actions.
 
Is it really illegal? I mean, if the Alliance issued Corsair vessels Letters of Marque wouldn’t any batarian prizes they took in accordance with those Letters be legitimate?

Modifié par General User, 01 mai 2011 - 01:45 .

[Nashiktal]

gosimmons wrote...

I think things like the attack on the Migrant Fleet and assassinations of Alliance were definitlely reprehensible. But I have trouble seeing the whole organization as evil.

TIM's ruthless, but the intel and resources he's given you has saved lives. And he wasn't in charge of the terrible projects like Overlord, or Jack's biotic camp (as far as we know anyway). Can't say if he'd do anything to stop those projects though. And he's probably funded worse things from what we've heard, so it's hard to say how I feel about him.

Other people like Jacob and Engineer Kenneth obviously aren't evil. They just saw Cerberus as the only group willing to do something about a threat everyone else was denying.

And that they don't much about their employers. Kenneth knew Cerberus was doing something about the reapers, and thats it. He was depicted as a bit of a hothead.

[DPSSOC]

Moiaussi wrote...
1) See my other post

2) Cerberus seems to have been founded (or at least concieved) back when the Alliance was only running under a charter, before it developed a formal parliament. That means Cerberus could have pretty much any structure and may have 'gone off the grid' only when politicians woke up and realized they had better ensure some accountability.

3) Proof of the Reaper's existance would count in that category, since 'widespread panic' is not only a believable outcome, but one it would be wise to avoid. Alternatively, weapons developed based on Reaper tech (such as the Thanix cannon) would be very dangerous to the Alliance in the wrong hands. Keep in mind that Keiji was killed by an arms dealer.

4) Make up your mind. Did they allow slander or prop him up as a hero? And how, precisely, did they know he was dead? He was believed dead, but he did turn up alive again, didn't he? You can argue that they used him as a marketing gimmick, but isn't that a different way of believing in him? And as for slander, Shepard was indeed working with Cerberus. Cerberus stacked the deck to make it seem like he had been with them longer, but that isn't hard to do when a ressurrection is involved.

5) He does, but he also talks about it without regrets for the program. He does have regrets over his lack of control.

6) As another poster mentioned, the Corsair missions were limited in scope. Jacob, who is not keen on Cerberus excesses felt the Corairs didn't go far enough.

1) You do raise a fair point, the poster I was responding to simply wanted to know in which game the event occurred.  I'm kind of on the fence about Darius.  On the one hand it's the Alliance pulling the same BS the Batarians did and I'm not particularly fond of the underhandedness of it all.  On the other I can completely understand why they did it.

2) True, it's entirely possible that Cerberus was operating both as a private organization as well as an arm of the Alliance military simultaneously and people only recently woke up to the fact.  Unfortunately unless Bioware clears things up we'll never really know.

3) Wouldn't that still qualify as dangerous to you?

4) I'm not saying the Alliance slandered him or that they propped him up as a hero.  They allowed the Council to slander him and propped him up as a gimmick.  As for a different way of believing in him let me ask you this; if a corporation used the image of a recently deceased celebrity (who's image they had no previous permission to use before he died) to sell their product would you consider them to be anything but money grubbing swine?  Note the slander I'm speaking of is nothing to do with Cerberus, it's to do with the Council spending the last two years declaring to all and sundry that you were mentally unstable.  The Alliance allowed the Council to publicize that you were insane when they no doubt have psychological evaluations (prudent after the events of ME1 wouldn't you agree) testifying you were not.

5) Been a while since I went through that convo but whether or not he feels bad about what happened is irrellevant.  There are plenty of victims of abuse who believe they deserve their treatment, that doesn't change the fact it should never have been allowed to happen.

6) True but they are still an illegal operation.  If they weren't doing anything illegal the Alliance would have no reason to be able to wash their hands of them.

General User wrote...
Now that’s a bit much, I mean if the Corsairs were doing the same things as the batarians, ie taking slaves and bombing colonies, I imagine Jacob’s objection would have been more… strenuous (ie involving bullets).

Not saying they do the same jobs just that they serve the same purpose.  Batarians funded pirates to target human colonies and vessels because they couldn't afford to do so openly.  Similarly the Alliance funds the Corsairs (to an extent) to go places and do things they can't allow themselves to be attached to.  Maybe that's raiding Batarian convoys, maybe it's just maintaining an active border patrol within the Terminus.  Either way it's somewhere they know they have no business being doing something they can't afford to get caught doing.

General User wrote...
There's a pretty big difference between covert ops and illegal actions.
 
Is it really illegal? I mean, if the Alliance issued Corsair vessels Letters of Marque wouldn’t any batarian prizes they took in accordance with those Letters be legitimate? 

If it weren't for the fact that the Alliance has set them up in such a way as to deny their existence is that difference.  Again the Salarians have the STG, a visible arm of their military intended for covert ops.  People may not know what they do but they know they exist.  That the Alliance feels the need to hide the very existence of the Corsairs, not just the details of their activities, speaks volumes.

Modifié par DPSSOC, 01 mai 2011 - 01:58 .

[Moiaussi]

General User wrote...
 
Is it really illegal? I mean, if the Alliance issued Corsair vessels Letters of Marque wouldn’t any batarian prizes they took in accordance with those Letters be legitimate?

To be fair on that, it would depend on whether the Alliance military had sanction to issue such letters. Barring an actual state of war (which would make such letters moot), it is not a given that the Alliance government would vote in favour of any such actions. That said, such action might be percieved as within a mandate to defend colonies in the region.

Illegal doesn't neccessarily make them immoral though. They could have been enforcing the equivalent of a no-fly zone in such a way as to reduce the risk of full scale war..... a very tricky thing that would have explained serious contraints on their actions.

[008Zulu]

[quote]Dean_the_Young wrote...
It depends on both the context and the nature of the test. One of the large factors of psychology is that people who know that they're being tested often perform differently, and so testing people without their knowledge can actually be a requirement.

It isn't the factor of unknown or even unwilling that dictates the ethical limitations for scientists, but the nature of the harm (if any).
[/quote]

When America first tested with flouride in the drinking water, thousands of people died. Not knowing it was there didn't alter the outcome any. Just because a person knows they are to be injected with acid doesn't alter that its going to hut like hell.

[quote]Dean_the_Young wrote...
You'd understand the answer if you didn't insist on radically shifting the context of every response you respond to.

Being an acid does not in and of itself make something unreasonable for injection. What else was done to thresher maw acid so that it would not eat through Corporal Toombs like a Mako, whether alteration or dilution, is critical in evaluation of whether it had any medical relevance.[/quote]

Different acids react differently with different forms of matter. If they were testing to see if it had the same effect on organic matter as inorganic then they could have used mice, pigs or even cloned tissue samples. Theres no excuse for live human testing, especially using Thresher acid on an unwilling subject. If they had used a Cerberus volunteer then I wouldn't be having this problem with their lack of morals and ethics.

[quote]Dean_the_Young wrote...
You're Zulunew, he's Zulu, because while you may have joined the board first you haven't been a part of this part of the community.[/quote]

So the old guy is the crazy one, I can live with that.

[quote]Dean_the_Young wrote...
...it's in the link.

Not, I suppose, that I should assume you've even looked at it, given that you've currently flopped about whether it was reputable or not, now conceding it as reputable after initially and repeatedly rejecting it with no provided reasoning.
[/quote]

I went back to the original post on page 19, there is no link.

[quote]Dean_the_Young wrote...
And yet they both disprove your repeated assertion that complete knowledge is a requirement for development of products. Complete knowledge isn't even the basis for building knowledge: Tesla built on the incomplete knowledge of those before, while Tesla himself wasn't a full master himself.

The Chernobyle disaster wasn't a lack of understanding of nuclear physics in any since, but rather a blatant and willful disregard of the safety procedures already created from existing knowledge.[/quote]

If the engineers had better training they could have activated the safety systems. Tesla had a better understanding than most of todays people, he was able to build stuff they haven't been able to replicate to this very day.

[quote]Dean_the_Young wrote...
According to our actual source in the game: Shepard was the only test subject. Whether you deem it improblable or not, that's the lore, and nothing else has been raised to suggest or imply otherwise.[/quote]

The human brain, after 6 minutes without oxygen suffers permenant brain damage, Shepard was a corpse for most of two years. While Cerberus may have been able to rebuild the brain itself, they couldn't have replicated the precise layout of every neuron without knowing precisely how the brain works. One misplaced connection and Shepard is a drooling wreck spasming on the floor.

[quote]Dean_the_Young wrote...
I'm sorry, 'the majority of pro-Cerbs'? Are we allowing sub-categorization now? The majority of a minority is now a majority element?

While ExtremeOne's crazy is legendary, I have no problem buying ME3 because ME3 isn't about Cerberus first and foremost to me. I'm neither surprised or necessarily disappointed by Cerberus's actions: I myself can make three different plausible, reasonable basis for why Cerberus might want to kill Shepard right off of my head, and not even be wrong in their belief. Until we get the game, you're assertions are as proven as anyone else's, including whether they will be permanent enemies.

And yes, noted on abandoning the argument again for something entirely separate.[/quote]

Without actual numbers all we can really use is the law of averages. Of the 100% gamebase, 50% pro-Alliance and 50% pro-Cerberus. There seems to be as many supporters for both sides going through the various topics on the forums.

[quote]Dean_the_Young wrote...
It was never denied. Cerberus will be brought to justice. It can still be used and utilized until then, however.

I presume we've also dropped the fallicious appeal to the majority argument of morality as well?[/quote]

Alot of your discusion points come accross as pro-Cerberus, as someone who has never liked them I see any attempt to excuse their actions as support for the actions. While there is an inherrant bias in that stand, it is not without reason.

That the majority is morally right? I will conceed the point.

[quote]Dean_the_Young wrote...
Your ferensic skills are as awe-inspiring as your knowledge of chemistry. As is your knowledge of what you're arguing about, given that you could have saved yourself a number of completely erronious assumptions and positions had you just looked up a summary of the book online.[/quote]

Given that I said I had never read the books, the probability of guessing exactly what happened was very low.

[quote]Dean_the_Young wrote...
And you lack it, since common sense also involves not countering your own arguments within your own arguments. 'Common sense' also argues against what was injected being pure Thresher Maw acid, especially since 'pure' was never claimed. Claiming 'common sense' to justify something that was never claimed after your own argument about only going by what what is known and not assumed is only common in so much as it's ridiculous.[/quote]

There is no evidence to back up your claim that it was altered either. The only facts we know of are the ones provided by Toombs. If he said Thresher acid was used, then Thresher acid was used.

[quote]Dean_the_Young wrote...
And now you're claiming, without support in game, that he has an intimate understanding and ability to take himself and a number of mechs through Omega's ventilation system and service ways and ducts without being stopped.[/quote]

He could have left the mechs and did a solo run if he were going for stealth. And Salarians are somewhat more flexible than other species, they might be able to do things like the octopus with the bottle.

[quote]Dean_the_Young wrote...
If Legion was in a position to do that, he never would have been 'captured' in the first place.[/quote]

He was only caught because he saw Shepard when he shot the two Husks. Once he saw him, he formulated a new plan where Shepard would be able to help him acheive his goal of stopping the heretics.

[quote]Dean_the_Young wrote...
Do read the codex for how stealth actually works in the Mass Effect universe. It isn't by radar.
[/quote]

I know. Which is why I wrote ladar, not radar.

[quote]Dean_the_Young wrote...
Legion has never given, claimed, suggested, or implied an ability to successfully pretend to be a Heretic despite a number of occasions in which such would have been useful.[/quote]

Perhaps it never occured to him to try, Shepard was able to stump him on why the N7 armour was used as a repair.

[quote]Dean_the_Young wrote...
Uh, since that wasn't what was in dispute, and the lives of millions of colonists who would have died before the Reaper arrival had the Collectors not stopped, whereas those deaths are not guaranteed during the Reaper War...[/quote]

The Human Reaper would have taken millions more to complete. At the current rate of harvesting it would have maybe been a year. The Reapers would have arrived long before then, and since they have a penchant for wiping out all sapient life, their deaths were guaranteed. Destroying the Collector base didn't change the fact that they will die, delaying the Reapers gave them a few more (presumable) years to.

[quote]Dean_the_Young wrote...
They need an eye roll smile. You're confusing game mechanics for lore.[/quote]

Go fight the ME1 Thresher on foot, they are clearely stronger of the two types encountered. Maybe the one on Tuchanka wasn't a full grown one.

[quote]Dean_the_Young wrote...
Spacer culture (non-planets, militarized, transitory socieity), colonist culture (colonials tend towards communist cultures, face raider/piracy threats, colonial society), earth-born (underworld-culture, planet-renaissance, developmental society).[/quote]

The codex made no mention of social mores.

[quote]Dean_the_Young wrote...
You may feel that. You may live in a culture-zone that feels that. Plenty of other people don't. I've lived in the region where VonBraun lived and worked, and there's certainly no similar feeling that it 'lost its shine'.

You are projecting your cultural views.
[/quote]

It doesnt bother me that people from the (the forums cenors that particular word) party were at NASA, all he did was build the V2. It might of bothered me if he were one of the more famous monsters of that regime who got a free pass because he knew rocket science.

[quote]Dean_the_Young wrote...
Cerberus is a cultural product of Humanity, and is at the same time affecting the cultural maintenance by their actions and policies. This is true in regards to the few who are abducted for experiments, and this is the true for the large trends that people never notice, such as the mass-introduction of biotics, the militarization (and xeno-acceptance) of the Catholic Churth.

Cerberus isn't even directing just human culture: Cerberus has undermined Asari biotic supremacism and the Turians' own war-hawk political wings.[/quote]

I'll give you indirectly affecting our culture, in that we are cogniscent of the crimes and mistakes they have made. As for the Asari and Turians, they are rather one-track-minded species, while showing them we can be just as good as them might not be a bad thing, the timing could cause tensions when the whole galaxy is about to be enveloped in a war it is unprepared for.

[quote]Dean_the_Young wrote...
Presumably, and they would have data you don't to make the judgement, because they deemed that Thresher Maw acid in some form could be chemistry with results they wanted.

Whether an acid or chemical substance has merit is dependent on the substance, not it's place as acid or chemical.[/quote]

I would certainly like to see this data that justifies injecting acid in to a person. In lack of any evidence, it comes off as sadistic.

[quote]Dean_the_Young wrote...
Besides being a truism and already proven (Cerberus noticing), that in no way suggests that they're evaluation of 'too many' is anywhere close to yours.[/quote]

We were never given an exact number of the people taken or the exact number of colonies hit. 10 colonies with 100,000 total taken over 2 years might not raise concerns, especially since they were Terminus colonists (who reject the Alliance in every shape and form). Since the Alliance is now a Council member they have no authority to act in the Terminus. If the Collector had targetted human colonies in Alliance space, then the Alliance would have noticed, and acted.

[quote]Dean_the_Young wrote...
Given the Shadow Broker dossiers, it's more than apparent that there are intelligence leaks by other means to be considered, deliberate or not by anyone he picked.

The colonists' suspicion is the group that matters. The Collectors having a certain type of suspicion does.
[/quote]

Emails sent to friends and family by the crew? EDI would scan those for any classified info. If it's the dossiers he gives you on team members to recruit, why give you peole like Jack and Tali who have known grudges with Cerberus?

[quote]Dean_the_Young wrote...
Iraq isn't won yet, nor was it won then. As I also said: if they are not succeding.[/quote]

G.W did declare victory While most people, myself included know it wasnt even close to being true, an offical mark of victory was made in the records books.

[quote]Dean_the_Young wrote...
Wikileaks hasn't come close to rewriting any narrative or history.[/quote]

No, but they have undermined the "truth" about a great many things written by the victors.

[quote]Dean_the_Young wrote...
Which was entirely irrelevant, especially in a collectivist context, to what I actually said. There has been more war than peace if you treat the globe as a single unit: otherwise, societies and regions have had the other experience, of more peace than war. If you have a group of a hundred, and any given year two are at war for the entirety of the hundred years, that in no way means there's been more war than peace for the groups involved.[/quote]

Individually there has been more peace yes, but we haven't gone a single human lifetime without a war breaking out somewhere on this planet.

[008Zulu]

DPSSOC wrote...
1 - Mass Effect 1 Renegade Mission (Get a certain amount of Renegade points mission unlocks, similar Paragon mission)
2 - The Alliance is a military organization they would not allow a unit (even a black-ops unit) to run without knowing what they were up to.  They may not know all the specifics but somebody in the Alliance brass would have known the broad strokes of their activities.
3 - People killed for it, Keiji himself (the only character to actually view the data) warn Kasumi that it's dangerous and could harm the Alliance.
4 - Hacket and Anderson are not the Alliance.  The Alliance government not only covered up the Reapers they also covered up his death, utilized him as a marketing gimmick, and, if nothing else, have allowed the Council to slander the name of a hero without response.
5 - ME1 Kaidan talks about his time at BAaT.  The Alliance let that happen.
6 - ME2 right off Lazarus before Freedoms Progress Jacob talks about the Corsairs, a group used to carry out missions that fall outside Alliance jurisdiction (and as such are illegal).  Like Cerberus it was set up so if ever discovered the Alliance could claim no part in it.

1- As I recall, Hackett denied everything.
2- The Army does Army stuff, thats pretty broad.
3- People have killed for other stuff, that doesnt make it dangerous. Could is not definate. For all we know he found out about the nukes hidden in the probes.
4- They are the only two we have had any contact with, and they are in clear support of Shepard's history. Shepard was the one who made all the store endoresments. The Alliance set up charities and funds in his name to help people. As for the Council slandering and no response, perhaps you should pay more attention to Councillor Anderson.
5- Humans knew nothing about biotic training or potential. I agree that not seeking Council help was a mistake, but not your assertion that it was done on purpose. besides, Cerberus has covered up its fair share of "rogue" operations.
6- Outside Alliance Jurisdiction can mean anything, it could mean helping a terminus colony defend against batarian slavers or raiding slaver bases and rescuinf people, taking in to custody known criminals who are hiding outside Alliance space. There is no proof anything they did was illegal.

[General User]

DPSSOC wrote...
Not saying they do the same jobs just that they serve the same purpose.  Batarians funded pirates to target human colonies and vessels because they couldn't afford to do so openly.  Similarly the Alliance funds the Corsairs (to an extent) to go places and do things they can't allow themselves to be attached to.  Maybe that's raiding Batarian convoys, maybe it's just maintaining an active border patrol within the Terminus.  Either way it's somewhere they know they have no business being doing something they can't afford to get caught doing. 

I agree in principal that the Corsairs were started as a limited-oversight/plausible deniability unit of the Alliance military. I just can’t agree that such a unit would be in any way improper. I mean to take the example you use; why is raiding batarian convoys a bad idea, it seems an acceptable response (if not the one I would take) to batarian provocations such as terrorist sponsorship and slave raids.  And one that is wholly legal, with the proper paper work.

If it weren't for the fact that the Alliance has set them up in such a way as to deny their existence is that difference.  Again the Salarians have the STG, a visible arm of their military intended for covert ops.  People may not know what they do but they know they exist.  That the Alliance feels the need to hide the very existence of the Corsairs, not just the details of their activities, speaks volumes.

See the thing is, I don’t see the Corsairs as a special ops force in the mold of the STG as much as a special ops unit tasked with a specific type of mission. And there’s no reason the general public, or even the military community would know of such a unit.

Modifié par General User, 01 mai 2011 - 02:40 .

[General User]

Moiaussi wrote...

General User wrote...
 
Is it really illegal? I mean, if the Alliance issued Corsair vessels Letters of Marque wouldn’t any batarian prizes they took in accordance with those Letters be legitimate?

To be fair on that, it would depend on whether the Alliance military had sanction to issue such letters. Barring an actual state of war (which would make such letters moot), it is not a given that the Alliance government would vote in favour of any such actions. That said, such action might be percieved as within a mandate to defend colonies in the region.

Illegal doesn't neccessarily make them immoral though. They could have been enforcing the equivalent of a no-fly zone in such a way as to reduce the risk of full scale war..... a very tricky thing that would have explained serious contraints on their actions.

The Alliance military surely doesn’t have the authority to issue Letters of Marque, but the Alliance Parliament does, by virtue of them being a sitting legislature.  But there's no reason Parliament couldn't vote out those Letters in secret.  Secret defense authorizations are far from unheard of.
 
Historically, privateers were often outfitted during declared war by nations who wanted to mobilize their merchant fleets for the war effort. I bring that up because I’m half convinced that a low-intensity, undeclared state of war already exists between the Systems Alliance and the Batarian Hegemony.

Modifié par General User, 01 mai 2011 - 02:51 .

[Moiaussi]

DPSSOC wrote...

2) True, it's entirely possible that Cerberus was operating both as a private organization as well as an arm of the Alliance military simultaneously and people only recently woke up to the fact.  Unfortunately unless Bioware clears things up we'll never really know.

It is also possible that the Alliance ties have simply been retconned out of existance, since there is no reference to the Alliance in the ME2 codex entry for Cerberus.

3) Wouldn't that still qualify as dangerous to you?

So does having a fleet of warships. The question isn't one of danger but of justification.

4) I'm not saying the Alliance slandered him or that they propped him up as a hero.  They allowed the Council to slander him and propped him up as a gimmick.  As for a different way of believing in him let me ask you this; if a corporation used the image of a recently deceased celebrity (who's image they had no previous permission to use before he died) to sell their product would you consider them to be anything but money grubbing swine?  Note the slander I'm speaking of is nothing to do with Cerberus, it's to do with the Council spending the last two years declaring to all and sundry that you were mentally unstable.  The Alliance allowed the Council to publicize that you were insane when they no doubt have psychological evaluations (prudent after the events of ME1 wouldn't you agree) testifying you were not.

a) Again, noone knew for certain if he was dead.
The image would have aided Alliance recruitment too, arguably more than it aided the Council.
c) This was a matter of promoting rebuilding after a major military action with significant losses in both ships and personel. Where does any 'money grubbing swine' comment come from?
d) Because the existance of the Reapers was kept quiet to avoid a panic, they weren't declaring to anyone that Shepard was mentally unstable. And if they had been, how would they have been able to use him for propeganda in any way? They maintained privately that he was insane, but when did they publicize that?

5) Been a while since I went through that convo but whether or not he feels bad about what happened is irrellevant.  There are plenty of victims of abuse who believe they deserve their treatment, that doesn't change the fact it should never have been allowed to happen.

Most of the 'abuse' came as a result of side effects from the L2 implants, which were deemed neccessary to pursue in the wake of the First Contact War. Are you arguing that because bad things happen, we shouldn't do.... things? There are abusive instructors in both public and private schools. Should we abolish schools? There are abusive doctors, soldiers, civilian bosses, civilian employees. What is your answer? Shoot all humans because otherwise, we are permitting some to be abusive? We can screen as best we can, and we can punish those we catch as best we can, but there is no guarantee of prevention. Note that Kaiden was not punished for killing the abusive instructor, despite using deadly biotic force.

6) True but they are still an illegal operation.  If they weren't doing anything illegal the Alliance would have no reason to be able to wash their hands of them.

Illegal and immoral are not equivalent. Law by its nature is general and doesn't handle exceptions well. That is why there is normally discretion exercised at all levels of the judicial system.

If it weren't for the fact that the Alliance has set them up in such a way as to deny their existence is that difference.  Again the Salarians have the STG, a visible arm of their military intended for covert ops.  People may not know what they do but they know they exist.  That the Alliance feels the need to hide the very existence of the Corsairs, not just the details of their activities, speaks volumes.

Who says the STG are public knowledge? Shepard didn't know about them until Vermire. He wasn't even told of their existance until he needed to know, even as a Spectre. That is hardly 'public knowledge.'

Modifié par Moiaussi, 01 mai 2011 - 02:47 .

[Vicks007 kid]

Who is evil or not is not fact, put perspective.

[General User]

Care to share your perspective?

[Moiaussi]

Vicks007 kid wrote...

Who is evil or not is not fact, put perspective.

Actually it is a matter of fact. Our ability (or lackthereof) to determine any such facts is a matter of perspective.

[HealthyGiraffe]

Evil or not, they brought Shepard back from the dead and are the only reason he is still alive.

[didymos1120]

ExtremeOne wrote...

didymos1120 wrote...

ExtremeOne wrote...

Hackett knew what was on that base in arrival .  

What's your evidence?  Just asserting this over and over does not a convincing case make.

  



simple if he did not know then why did he mention the reaper item that was on the base to Shepard.

Because KENSON told him about it.  Pay attention.