1381 réponses à ce sujet

[msantos]

Goneaviking wrote...

Even if I'm wrong about him using Shepard as a smokescreen the game put in plenty of hints to lead players to suspect that things weren't on the level long before the first trailer or leaked rumour about the third game.

Agreed.  But you do realize that there are some here that will continuously dismiss that perspective under an ever too common alegation of "bad writing" on the part of Bioware, right?  

Can Cerberus be defended?  Sure, as this and other threads prove, there's no shortage of afinnity and acceptance of Cerberus and to prove it some good arguments and explanations have been put forward to support those claims.  But are these arguments and reasonings good and credible enough for the rest of the fan base? 

And finally: Can anyone actually win that defense in the broader sense of that the writers intended Cerberus to be portrayed as in the eyes of the larger fan base?  Given Bioware's repeated attempts at painting Cerberus as a generally vilainous organization (ME1, novels & comics, etc), I certainly would not bet against the house. 


Cheers

Modifié par msantos, 25 novembre 2011 - 03:26 .

[Kaiser Shepard]

msantos wrote...

Goneaviking wrote...

Even if I'm wrong about him using Shepard as a smokescreen the game put in plenty of hints to lead players to suspect that things weren't on the level long before the first trailer or leaked rumour about the third game.

Agreed.  But you do realize that there are some here that will continuously dismiss that perspective under an ever too common alegation of "bad writing" on the part of Bioware, right?  

Can Cerberus be defended?  Sure, as this and other threads prove, there's no shortage of afinnity and acceptance of Cerberus and to prove it some good arguments and explanations have been put forward to support those claims.  But are these arguments and reasonings good and credible enough for the rest of the fan base?

And that's where player agency should enter the stage: allow the player to decide for himself whether a certain price is worth a certain payoff.

And finally: Can anyone actually win that defense in the broader sense of that the writers intended Cerberus to be portrayed as in the eyes of the larger fan base?  Given Bioware's repeated attempts at painting Cerberus as a generally vilainous organization (ME1, novels & comics, etc), I certainly would not bet against the house.

If there's anything the series has so far shown, it's that no one at Bioware had intended or planned anything in advance. As for their portrayal in the comics, they've been fairly protagonistic in those so far, and in the novels they only oppose equally morally dubious characters.

Modifié par Kaiser Shepard, 25 novembre 2011 - 03:46 .

[Andorfiend]

I have never understood why anyone likes Cerberus or TIM.

TIM prattles on about he's all pro-humanity while simultaneously doing more to impede human progress than smallpox and television combined.

Remember in ME 1 when the news was describing how Colonial investors wree pulling out after the attack on Eden Prime? An attack which killed a few hundred people and did no real long term damage to the colony? Remember how it was supposed to have set human expansion back by years?

TIM single-handedly wiped out multiple human colonies for no better reason than to test inherantly unstable weapons systems. Not only is the very idea of using Thorians and Rachni stupid but for the love of air, why would you test them on human colonies if you're pro-human? Why not the Turians?

TIM butchers Alliance troops and officers, wipes out colonies, goes out of his way to ****** off every potential ally humanity could aquire, and gets our leading scientists killed off in job-lots. Oh, and sets off dirty bombs over slums for funs. As far as I can tell the only thing he ever did which did not measurably impede human progress is bring back Shepard.

And at that, if he had put that money into the Alliance instead, we could have had a fleet of heavy cruisers protecting our colonies from the Collectors instead of the dirty dozen.

Face it, Cerberus is hand-wringing, mustache-twirling, cape-swirling, tie the heroine to the railroad tracks evil. And stupid evil at that. TIM is a Bond villain, Miranda is a Bond girl, and Shepard is 00-N-bloody-7 Bond. Stop cheering for Dr Evil.

[CerberusWarrior]

screw you anti Cerberus people .

[UpDownLeftRight]

Goneaviking wrote...
There's an email on Feros which indicated that Exogeni were sending thorian creepers to Cerberus, what happened to those subjects? So there's a definitive link between the corporation and Cerberus, and Cerberus was certainly experimenting with them.

There is definitely a link between Cerberus and ExoGeni. But there is nothing that tells us that Cerberus was directly responsible for the events at Nodacrux.
The only thing we know of is that Cerberus experimented on Thorian Creepers. Exactly what that experimentation consisted of is not known.

[Dean_the_Young]

Goneaviking wrote...

The fact is that he either withholds information from Shepard, or outright lies to him, on every Collector mission he puts in front of Shepard. He engineers an attack by the Collectors before he knows that Mordin has developed countermeasures for the paralysing swarm,

There's really nothing to suggest that the Illusive Man could control the exact timing of when the Virmire Survivor would be sent.

sends Shepard into an ambush on the Collector ship,

This one actually is true... and it also has a valid reason. (Not springing a trap too early when you need the bait.)

forgets to mention that the crew aboard the defunct Reaper has stopped checking in with HQ

Er, no. He did tell you that.

and "oh, since you're there anyway I think there's a way to wipe out the biologicals without destroying the Collector base."

Except he only found that out AFTER you began fighting through the base, from EDI's scans. You can't claim prior intent on that when the means to do so were only discovered after the point of no return.

I'm certain of this because there's no way an intellect of TIM's calibre would undermine Shepard's leadership that way if he valued Shepard's ability to lead.

He didn't undermine Shepard's leadership any more than Shepard undermined his.

My best guess is that Shepard, and his crew, were a distraction to get everyone* to look in the wrong direction while his real plans came to fruition somewhere completely banal and non-descript, and that that secret project is what makes Cerberus the enemy in ME3.

Nope, that's not what happen(ed).

Even if I'm wrong about him using Shepard as a smokescreen the game put in plenty of hints to lead players to suspect that things weren't on the level long before the first trailer or leaked rumour about the third game.

It's easy to invent retroactive justification.

[msantos]

Kaiser Shepard wrote...

And that's where player agency should enter the stage: allow the player to decide for himself whether a certain price is worth a certain payoff.

 

I agree, even though that implies a greater element of technical and execution complexity.  
In the end, I expect Bioware's own moral baseline to be the "default"... which may mean that a more Renegade approach will not be awarded the best outcome.  Perhaps a "good enough" outcome, but certainly not the best.

Kaiser Shepard wrote... 
If there's anything the series has so far shown, it's that no one at Bioware had intended or planned anything in advance. As for their portrayal in the comics, they've been fairly protagonistic in those so far, and in the novels they only oppose equally morally dubious characters.

It is certainly debatable, but not necessarily the opinion of many in the fan base (I suspect the majority).  

Sure, the devil is always in the smaller details but the major points and overall direction were defined well in advance.
And Cerberus being defined as it has been is not a surprise to many.  
Come to think about it: Perhaps one of the biggest and most shocking surprise to many fans was Shepard realizing that his return to life was owed to nobody else but Cerberus!!!  This is something most fans had wished they could have avoided since being connected to Cerberus at the hip during ME2 remained nothing short of a moral albatross.  Got to give it to Bioware on this one as that was a true challenge for many fans in no small part due to the worrisome reputation Cerberus always had. 

Cheers

[Harmless Citizen]

I can see where one might defend Cerberus at its lower levels (people like Gabby, Jacob, Ken, Kelly, et al who are just looking to accomplish things), but not so much at the administrative and experimentive tier. Even if you approach morality from a purely utilitarian direction (and thus use this to justify the racism and monstrous projects), there's still the fact that Cerberus is horribly stupid.

Seriously. The only time that someone (read: Shepard) has not has to pull their arse out of the fire because of the incredibly idiotic way they cawk up their research is Project Lazarus. Cerberus' collective stupidity might be a bigger threat to humanity than aliens ever will.

[msantos]

Random Nobody wrote...

I can see where one might defend Cerberus at its lower levels (people like Gabby, Jacob, Ken, Kelly, et al who are just looking to accomplish things), but not so much at the administrative and experimentive tier.

Certainly.  And I suspect one of the reasons why there's a good abundance of such characters is because that provides a good level moral support to a genuinely paragon Shepard.  Were it not for those characters, the whole thing might have looked more like a prison sentence leading towards eventual suicide. Fairly depressing to some.

Imagine, being indebted to Cerberus for something as significant your own resurrection and then having to "join them in the fight against the collectors" translates into a fairly nasty state of affairs. if you cannot avoid this, then it helps to have average/honest  folks in the crew that are either not aware of Cerberus's bad reputation or simply do not care because they at least they see Cerberus geting some things done.

The top tiers at Cerberous appear to a different matter altogether.  Even Miranda (being a top operative) did not make it easier at first, and it was not until quite a bit later than Shepard could get her so see that to truly win, one does not need to believe the "Ends always justify the means".

Cheers

[someone else]

Random Nobody wrote...

Seriously. The only time that someone (read: Shepard) has not has to pull their arse out of the fire because of the incredibly idiotic way they cawk up their research is Project Lazarus.

as i recall a certain someone had to help pull the lazarus project out of the crapper bcause cerberus security failed to detect a mole...

[Harmless Citizen]

I was giving them credit for that one since it was sabotage and not directive oversight mixed with flagrant stupidity.

[someone else]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Arkitekt wrote...
Yeah, they constantly "cross the line",

Which line?

...ask kirrahe...

SomeOne withMass wrote

By the way, despite popular belief, sitting in a chair and doing nothing but smoke and drink all day does not make you cool.

Not True!  We have it on record he gets laid and plays skyball - so there.

Modifié par someone else, 25 novembre 2011 - 06:50 .

[Someone With Mass]

someone else wrote...

Not True!  We have it on record he gets laid and plays skyball - so there.

Spoiler:

So does Shepard. And he actually does something useful for a living.

[someone else]

Random Nobody wrote...

I was giving them credit for that one since it was sabotage and not directive oversight mixed with flagrant stupidity.

Why give them "credit" for crappy security on a project in which they virtually bet the farm - ya think they could detect one amatuer spy (ie a scientist recruited for the job - By whom I wonder btw?) whose nefarious plot was hacking the bots? - on a space platform no less - that sure makes the mexican border look like fort knox

Modifié par someone else, 25 novembre 2011 - 07:13 .

[someone else]

Someone With Mass wrote...

someone else wrote...

Not True!  We have it on record he gets laid and plays skyball - so there.

Spoiler:

So does Shepard. And he actually does something useful for a living.

Shep plays skyball?!  Do we get to see?  [peeking at spoilers through imperfectly closed fingers]

[Someone With Mass]

someone else wrote...
Shep plays skyball?!  Do we get to see?  [peeking at spoilers through imperfectly closed fingers]

Nope, but he plays poker and takes all the money. Like a boss.

[someone else]

Someone With Mass wrote...

someone else wrote...
Shep plays skyball?!  Do we get to see?  [peeking at spoilers through imperfectly closed fingers]

Nope, but he plays poker and takes all the money. Like a boss.

Doesn't replace skyball, and therein lies the diff between alliance toadies and cerberus ubermenschen

[Goneaviking]

[quote]Dean_the_Young wrote...

[quote]Goneaviking wrote...

The fact is that he either withholds information from Shepard, or outright lies to him, on every Collector mission he puts in front of Shepard. He engineers an attack by the Collectors before he knows that Mordin has developed countermeasures for the paralysing swarm, [/quote]There's really nothing to suggest that the Illusive Man could control the exact timing of when the Virmire Survivor would be sent.[/quote]

There's no reason he had to start the rumours that brought the VS to Horizon, nor the rumours that said that the VS would be on Horizon, before a countermeasure was prepared. There was no way to know when the countermeasure would be ready for testing when he started the rumour, or even if Mordin would make measurable progress.

[quote]
[quote]
sends Shepard into an ambush on the Collector ship, [/quote]This one actually is true... and it also has a valid reason. (Not springing a trap too early when you need the bait.)[/quote]

Whatever reason he had, it was still disingenous to report the Turian signal and it is a valid reason for players to distrust him. Particularly when Shepard and most of his team would have accepted the assignment anyway because the stakes really are quite high.

[quote]
[quote]
and "oh, since you're there anyway I think there's a way to wipe out the biologicals without destroying the Collector base." [/quote]Except he only found that out AFTER you began fighting through the base, from EDI's scans. You can't claim prior intent on that when the means to do so were only discovered after the point of no return.[/quote]

So he says, but with his history playing fast and loose with the truth why wouldn't you take that claim with a grain of salt? Even if he didn't know it for sure it was a viable scenario it wouldn't be out of character for him to have a couple of contingency plans in mind if it turned out to be viable.

[quote]
[quote]I'm certain of this because there's no way an intellect of TIM's calibre would undermine Shepard's leadership that way if he valued Shepard's ability to lead.[/quote]He didn't undermine Shepard's leadership any more than Shepard undermined his.[/quote]

Shepard was a conscript who went along with TIM because he was the only show in town, but TIM doesn't have that excuse. He invested a fortune, and two years, in restoring life to the frozen pulp that at one stage had been Shepard and building an extraordinarily advanced military ship and recruiting a crew for him to lead.

The player is given the option of being antagonistic both to him and to his Cerberus team members right from the start, which makes sense if he's caught in a situation he doesn't want to be in. What doesn't make sense is to recruit someone for their leadership abilities and then withhold vital intelligence from them consistently.

[quote][quote]
My best guess is that Shepard, and his crew, were a distraction to get everyone* to look in the wrong direction while his real plans came to fruition somewhere completely banal and non-descript, and that that secret project is what makes Cerberus the enemy in ME3.[/quote]Nope, that's not what happen(ed).[/quote]

It's too early to know for sure. It would certainly make more it more palatable to have Cerberus turn against Shepard and co. because of some super-secret project than because of exposure to the wreckage of the Collector's Base.

[quote][quote]
Even if I'm wrong about him using Shepard as a smokescreen the game put in plenty of hints to lead players to suspect that things weren't on the level long before the first trailer or leaked rumour about the third game.[/quote]It's easy to invent retroactive justification.
[/quote]

Indeed, but apparently I wasn't the only person who ended the game thinking that TIM was untrustworthy and fully expecting him to screw me over in the next installment.

[Ducky MoMo]

cuz the illusive man is a dick

[Harmless Citizen]

I still can't understand handing over the base to TIM, to be honest. Especially since Cerberus tend to make galaxy-screwingly huge messes.

[Goneaviking]

Saphra Deden wrote...

msantos wrote...

Come to think about it: Perhaps one of the biggest and most shocking surprise to many fans was Shepard realizing that his return to life was owed to nobody else but Cerberus!!! 

Of-course they were surprised. The Cerberus, Collector, and Shepard death plots were never hinted at or implied in ME2. It came completely out of nowhere. Cerberus had very little presence or characterization in ME1 and was even implied to have mostly been destroyed.

Exogeni had bigger villain status than they did.

Some of the original concepts for ME2 involved the geth ressurrecting Shepard.

However it is the fact that the only thing planned in advance for the ME3 trilogy was "Shepard defeats the Reapers". That's it.

I honestly think I would have loved having my evil boss being a board of directors constantly demanding that we attain profit for their shareholder.

Exogeni, why couldn't you have restored life to my frigid corpse? *sigh*

I also like the ressurected by geth idea, more than Cerberus anyway.

[Sweawm]

Random Nobody wrote...

Why give them "credit" for crappy security on a project in which they virtually bet the farm - ya think they could detect one amatuer spy (ie a scientist recruited for the job - By whom I wonder btw?) whose nefarious plot was hacking the bots? - on a space platform no less - that sure makes the mexican border look like fort knox

Wilson was a spy recruited by the Shadow Broker (In in the SB's Files after you eliminate him... or her? How can you tell with Yahg?). If the Broker couldn't have Shepard, then nobody can. The Shadow Broker paid Wilson to eliminate Shepard.

[Eustacia]

Goneaviking wrote...

Saphra Deden wrote...

msantos wrote...

Come to think about it: Perhaps one of the biggest and most shocking surprise to many fans was Shepard realizing that his return to life was owed to nobody else but Cerberus!!! 

Of-course they were surprised. The Cerberus, Collector, and Shepard death plots were never hinted at or implied in ME2. It came completely out of nowhere. Cerberus had very little presence or characterization in ME1 and was even implied to have mostly been destroyed.

Exogeni had bigger villain status than they did.

Some of the original concepts for ME2 involved the geth ressurrecting Shepard.

However it is the fact that the only thing planned in advance for the ME3 trilogy was "Shepard defeats the Reapers". That's it.

I honestly think I would have loved having my evil boss being a board of directors constantly demanding that we attain profit for their shareholder.

Exogeni, why couldn't you have restored life to my frigid corpse? *sigh*

I also like the ressurected by geth idea, more than Cerberus anyway.

Yeah, I have stated many times how out of the blue the Cerberus plot is (not to mention slighty boring). Now ExoGeni...that sounds a lot more interesting.

[Harmless Citizen]

I didn't write that, Sweawm.