Fun times.
[quote]Dean_the_Young wrote...
[quote]cindercatz wrote...
1. No. What I am saying is that those (and baby Reaper) are the only examples we've got of that kind of technology and that visual motif in the Mass Effect franchise. If this turns out to be the case, it's an effective use of foreshadowing.[/quote]Cybernetics are well established in the lore of Mass Effect, independent of the Reapers. Most of the cybernetic tech-upgrades Shepard gets actually come from Mordin's lab.
The red-eyes is the visual motif of the Renegade alignment, not Reaper. Reaper-cybernetics actually go with blue eyes, as seen in Saren and TIM. It would be anti-foreshadowing.
[quote]
2. Miranda worked for Cerberus, and her new, never before seen technology used to resurrect Shepard was exclusive to Cerberus. Why would she or Chakwas even know if anything they looked at was Reaper tech? [/quote]Because of a roughly 300-hundred year old tech gap in the quality of the technology involved.
[quote]
Aside from husk tech or a dead Reaper, that is. For that matter, how does Cerberus even know where Shepard is when the Normandy is destroyed? Because they're already looking. [/quote]Actually, no. Because they helped Liara stole Shepard's corpse from the Shadow Broker, who was going to sell it to the Collectors.
[quote]
Why do they even make the attempt to bring him back? Shepard, the guy/gal who potentially been going out of his way to dismantle them? Sure he's a 'bloody hero', but there's more to it than that, I bet. Maybe it's because the Reapers see his/her potential as an agent.[/quote]If the Reapers wanted Shepard as an agent and had TIM under their control and in a position to do so himself, then Shepard could have just been handed over to the Collectors and the Reapers do it themselves with better technology than Cerberus has. But Cerberus was the very reason the Collectors didn't get their hands on Shepard, and Shepard went on to repeatedly spoil Reaper plans and operations that would have succeded if not for Shepard.
Nor was Shepard on some big crusade to dismantle Cerberus in ME1. Shepard ran into a few Cerberus cells... and that's it. And TIM has an established history of working with past foes.
[quote]
3. Their agents don't follow Reaper ideology. The Reapers use the indoctrinateds personal ideologies against them. Saren, for example, still had bias against humans, and had a serious superiority complex. That was twisted into a belief that he and his kind would survive and thrive, at his enemies' expense. The derelict Reaper victims, some of them in particular, believed they had wives they never had, believed there was betrayal against them by their colleagues, etc. There is no single Reaper ideology that any indoctrinated individual displays, just a host of personal flaws the Reapers apply to their indoctrination. If they're actively spouting 'Reapers are inevetible', etc., it's because they've already functionally outlived their usefulness. Saren doesn't even know his ship is a Reaper until well into Mass Effect 1, at which point he's mostly a puppet ready for a last ditch attack on the Citadel, and he rebels enough that he can be talked into attempted suicide.[/quote]One of the common points of indoctrinated victims is that while the early phases involve their own ideology used against them, the later phases supplant this with the Reaper's own 'light.' This is why Saren goes from 'we should be tools for the machines' to 'union of flesh and steel', while Kenson goes from scientific skepticism about how the Reapers want to kill everything to how the Reapers are salvation.
It's also been mentioned in dev talk that Indoctrination is in some respects similar to a form of 'enlightenment' in and of itself.
[quote]
4. In ME1, Shepard is obviously not indoctrinated. But he spoiled Soveriegn's 50,000 year old operation. That caught their attention, and it led to both their intentional destruction of the Normandy (by their Prothean Collector slaves) and their collection of his body, which if you've read the Liara comic you know the Collectors were involved in right alongside Cerberus. Liara was left with what she believed to be the lesser of two evils and the prospect of bringing Shepard back. But Cerberus is largely indoctrinated, we know for sure now. That didn't happen over night. So why would the Reapers want to bring Shepard back, if not to use him/her?[/quote]
We do not know that Cerberus is largely indoctrinated, ever. We only get that about Cerberus soldiers in ME3. It implies nothing about their state in ME2, whereas there is a several month gap between ME2 and ME3... far longer than 'overnight', and more than enough time to justify indoctrination after ME2. Especially since we establish in Retribution that Cerberus at that time is still opposing the Reapers, and in the new Omega-centric comics that Cerberus has been dealing with Collector/Reaper technology after ME2 as well.
Your entire conspiracy is based upon a fundamentally baseless suspicion, that Cerberus was indoctrinated and in Reaper control before ME2.
The Collectors were not 'involved in right alongside Cerberus' in the
Liara comic. The Collectors were on the opposing side from Cerberus: the
two factions were fighting over Shepard's corpse to get it for
themselves. Which wouldn't have been necessary if they were on the same
side, because the Shadow Broker was already going to sell to the
Collectors.
[quote]
5. The only actual profile of indoctrination is unwitting performance of activities that benefit the Reapers, as they mostly attempt to keep their indoctrination unknown until it's too late and they decide to "assume direct control". In ME2, there are numerous ways you can help the Reapers' cause, unknowingly or not.[/quote]No, indoctrination comes with many signs, external and internal. Memory trouble, hearing voices and whispers, gradual shifts in thinking and priorities, increasingly pro-Reaper thoughts, and decrease in capabilities. None of which Shepard has ever illustrated.
The only 'pro-Reaper' actions Shepard can take are on the ideology of 'will not ultimately be the best for the upcoming war'... which is a retroactive fallacy because it marks any non-ideal decision as 'pro-Reaper' as opposed to any other reason that Shepard reflects. You might as well claim that if you walk down the left side of a hallway you're a communist, and if you walk on the right side you're just hiding it. It's a claim that's impossible to disprove.
[quote]
6. In ME2, the Reapers already have what they want. It's a case of attempting to control an unwilling agent without revealing their hand, and Cerberus is the initial, blunt instrument to do that. Why else would they want Shepard's body? Because he or she's an exceptional human specimen? It takes tens of thousands of humans just to build one human Reaper. [/quote]And only one to make an Avatar.
[quote]
They have an investment in their agent. You the player can overcome their indoctrination, represented in the game's choices, or you can succumb. I bet you that's what it's going to boil down to. Then, once revealed, you'll have the chance to knowingly resist. I bet. :-)[/quote]Except that's not how indoctrination works. You can't 'overcome' indoctrination, especially the sort of Reaper-implants that you're arguing on.
More to the point, you're countering your own thesis. If the Reapers have an investment in the product, they wouldn't needlessly endanger their product fighting themselves for no reason.
[quote]
7. The only way you're guaranteed to spoil the Reapers' plans in ME2 is in destroying the baby Reaper. At every other stage, there are repeatedly choices that can benefit the Reapers. Obviously, Shepard isn't fully indoctrinated, certainly not yet, unless of course the player's decisions result in that conclusion.[/quote]
Recruiting Mordin and saving the Plague District spreads a cure to an effective Reaper bio-weapon, produces the countermeasures to an otherwise un-countered Collector ability, and puts a veteran STG agent in prime position to spy on Cerberus, your alleged Reaper instrument.
Horizon blocks the Collectors from seizing the Virmire and half a colony, exposing their role to the Alliance and galactic powers. It was only blocked because of TIM and Shepard preparing the colony, telling Shepard, and fighting the Collectors.
The Collector Cruiser does... nothing but tell EDI how to bypass Omega 4, at extreme risk to Shepard (the investment to be protected).
The Derilect Reaper, known by Cerberus, that could have been destroyed at any time, that possessed the one IFF that allows Shepard to bypass Omega 4 and blow up the Collector Base and baby Reaper.
The Suicide Mission itself, which destroys the Collectors (who have failed by the Reapers own admission), destroys the Baby Reaper, and ruins the Collectors' harvesting of the Terminus.
Arrival delays the Reapers by monthes/years, with Shepard being the sole driving force to preventing the invasion.
[quote]
8. We'll see. ;-)[/quote]There's nothing to see in a baseless conspiracy.
[/quote]
1. So wait a minute, now you're saying TIM is indoctrinated? With the blue eyes? He should be. His exposure began in the First Contact War and he's been collecting Reaper tech (and using it, even making husks, as seen in ME1) for a very long time. Saren's eyes are deep, bright, glowing red after he shoots himself, or rather his Reaper tech skeleton, and so is the human Reaper. That's the first time we even know he has Reaper implants. If TIM (and TIM is Cerberus, the only guy who functions as Cerberus central nervous system) is already indoctrinated, then he would likely believe he's acting independently, doing things in humanity's interest, etc., just like Benezia had no idea she was indoctrinated for a long while or even understood how it happened, just that she had changed on Saren's ship and couldn't stop it. Something had taken her free will, something about the ship.
The red eyes have nothing to do with Renegade in ME1, only in ME2 as you make decisions, only because whatever your cyber-skeleton and the nanites that go with it are made of become more active and agressive, whereas they heal your scars and generally don't act up if you make enough Paragon decisions. (I'm not saying you should play as a paragon. I play as both, and both make a mix of P/R choices.) The red eyes are all about the implants.
2.
a. 300 year tech gap? The Reapers have been around for hundreds of thousands of years, at least. We have no idea what the tech gap is, and neither would Miranda or certainly Chakwas, who's a medic, not a cybernetics engineer. Miranda works for Cerberus at that point, as a project lead. She sees unique, Cerberus exclusive tech all the time. Why would she know that this never before seen tech is Reaper as opposed to any of the other never before seen tech she works with?
b. And actually, yes. Liara doesn't go looking for Cerberus. Miranda and her Cerberus team show up out of the blue, because they are already looking for Shepard. Who's to say that the Collectors wouldn't have just turned Shep's body over to Cerberus, anyway? There is no taking it to the Reapers. The Reapers are well outside the galaxy at that point, and all the way through ME2 for that matter. There's only their agents to work with, and the Collectors themselves are mostly puppets and drones, at the end of their usefulness as ME2 winds down going by Harbinger's lines. The Shadowbroker was only looking to turn around and sell Shep's body himself. Why not right back to Cerberus? The Reapers hide their tracks. Don't assume they'd take the direct route to do anything when there's a more obscure alternative. Only if they don't have a choice.
c. Your Shep certainly can be going out of his way to take Cerberus down. You can investegate Kohaku, you can track down every Cerberus operation you come across and dismantle them. My male Shep's a sole survivor, and he finds out Cerberus is behind the ambush that killed his entire unit, and that they still have one other survivor they've been holding captive and experimenting on for years. You can execute Cerberus scientists in cold blood, arrest one and have him picked up specifically to expose Cerberus and help to prosecute them. You can ignore all that, but there's every oppurtunity for Shep to be taking every chance he or she gets to dismantle Cerberus in ME1. There are oppurtunities to betray them in a few ways during the course of ME2 as well, for that matter.
3. Fully indoctrinated, no longer covert Reaper agents take on those traits, and then can still resist. That's at the end of their usefulness. That's the Reapers spreading their gospel during an agent's suicide run, and even then only to those who already know about them. It's also what they generally avoid in a successful agent, as is explained by Saren on Vermire. The more free agency and the longer leash of free will the agent can get away with, the better and more effective the agent. It also raises the question why they seem so intent to converse with Shepard directly as often as they do. They're not hiding their existence from Shep from ME1's endgame on, or staying silent, and that may say something in itself.
4. You generally have to be near an active Reaper or active Reaper husk tech to get indoctrinated or husked. You destroy the derelict Reaper (which was not dead dead until you blow up its core), and you can destroy the baby Reaper factory, which only leaves the occasional husk spire still around that we know about, much of which is collected by Cerberus and has been with Cerberus since at least before ME1, so when do you think TIM was indoctrinated? I say it's likely he's been indoctrinated a very long time, even if he's not aware of it. Going out and collecting their technology, combining that with research on legions of aliens.. and humans, let's not forget.. may not be so bad for the Reapers, despite what TIM outwardly believes. My suspicions are not at all baseless. As for Liara, see 2.b. :-)
5. The Reapers prefer a light, undetected touch, with the absolute minimum of control, according to Saren. Shepard has unprecedented access to all the galaxies major species and oppurtunity to effect a number of ongoing situations, all of which can indeed be manipulated to the Reapers' benefit. If the player's own version of Shep has various insecurities or biases toward different species and conflicts, then saying at the end the Reaper tech skeleton was being used to attempt to bring those out is entirely consistent with whatever reasons the player makes those decisions originally. It's not any kind of fallacy, because the best, most useful Reaper agents don't know they're indoctrinated (though they can begin to suspect).. exactly like the player in that scenario. If the player does not make any decisions beneficial to the Reaper, then obviously the indoctrination would not have been as successful. Don't forget Shep's not living inside a Reaper like Saren and Benezia. Saren's skeleton was only a Reaper conduit, specifically to Sovereign, not independently sentient.
6. Only one to build an avatar? ?? And you can overcome indoctrination. Saren can do it long enough to shoot himself, even years after living inside Sovereign, even with the implants. Shepard's had nowhere near that level of exposure. Benezia did so for a little while as well, again after years living inside a Reaper, under it's direct thumb. Also, as much interest as the Reapers show Shepard personally, he may be more suited, or somewhat protected by the cypher. There are a number of ways to explain that.
7. Recruiting Mordin allows you the ability to permanently cripple the Krogan, if you choose. The virus on Omega is not exactly a direct Reaper attack, and not nearly so important as the Krogan. Also, Mordin has no more ability to spy on Cerberus than Shepard does, which is practically none, or only what TIM allows. More like Cerberus can attempt to manipulate him.
TIM also had the Virmire Survivor sent to Horizon. Why'd he do that? And slowing down the collection of humans to accomplish whatever his ulterior motive was, never mind his surface motive to protect human colonies, did nothing to stop the Collectors' ongoing activities, nor would it conflict with TIM's indoctrination, since, like Saren, he would be attempting to save his own species at all others' expense.
TIM leads you into an ambush on the Collector ship, knowingly. Also, I never said TIM didn't believe he was still attempting to help humanity, including fighting Collectors. Just because Harbinger (the Collectors) knows something or TIM knows something doesn't mean they both know what the other is up to, anyway, or everything Shep and his crew are going to do, such as unlocking EDI's free will.
The Collector IFF is part of destroying the baby Reaper, not to mention where you meet legion, both things the Reapers obviously don't want, but then TIM attempts to convince you to have Legion sent to him for research, so it's not like this section is cut and dried.
Same thing for the Suicide Mission, and again TIM attempts to save the baby Reaper factory.
You consistently have options that can turn out to help the Reapers, even when you've obviously hurt them in some way during the preceding moment, options which can potentially mitigate their damage or help them in other ways, at just about every turn.
8. Not baseless, but you can ignore it if you want. It may turn out to be correct, it may not. I'm only saying certain things seem more likely than others, the way I see it. So, again.. We'll see. :-)
Retour en haut
