Destroy Raiden wrote...
^ Do they explain in the books ( I assume you read them) what he looks like and by that I mean was he always so dead pale looking with the tubes and cybernetics or do they say anything about him dying while obtaining or dying in close proximity to sovereign and then sovereign brought him back to life?
In the book Saren's pre indoctrination apperence is describes him as still being very pale and his plate structure very skelital looking. This means that part of his apperence is natural. At the time he had no cybernetics (no tubes or machine parts).
The book follows the events mentioned by Anderson in ME1, including the event where Saren sabotages the mission to stop Anderson from becoming a Specter. The book ends with Saren taking information about a "ancheint star ship" *cought*Sovereign*cough* that was discovered by a human scientist and sets out to find it to use its power to essensially screw over humanity (Saren is very Racist).
It is assumed he was indoctrinated over the next...15 years i believe between the book and Mass Effect 1.