1482 réponses à ce sujet

[Someone With Mass]

MisterJB wrote...

And Cerberus exist solely to assist humans.

It's funny, because Cerberus has probably killed more humans than the aliens have post-FCW.

[Dean_the_Young]

Someone With Mass wrote...

MisterJB wrote...

And Cerberus exist solely to assist humans.

It's funny, because Cerberus has probably killed more humans than the aliens have post-FCW.

Where'd they kill millions of Humans again?

[yoshibb]

Do you have to be pro-cerberus, anti-human, pro-council, anti-alien, pro-leather jackets, anti-turtleneck sweaters, etc.?

Can't you just be pro-galaxy, anti-reapers and make rational decisions based on that?

[Dean_the_Young]

didymos1120 wrote...

Calibration Master wrote...


This is true. But what ALL terrorist organisations have in common, is that their main tactic is to inflict fear.

Cerberus' main tactic is not to inflict fear, thus they aren't terrorists.

Personally, I agree.  Another big part of why these arguments happen, I think, is because when people see someone saying "Cerberus aren't terrorists" they view it as equivalent to saying "Cerberus are good guys".  There's some truth to that for some posters, but most people disputing the label just don't like it because it's not a very accurate description of Cerberus' behavior.  I mean, for myself, I think Cerberus is pretty @#$%ed-up and I'm not particularly fond of them, but I also think "terrorists" is a misnomer.

'Cabal' is a good one.

In fact, it's indirectly used in the Cerberus Daily News story about the Prothean archive, which is controlled by a Cerberus front company (the Milky Way Foundation).

[DeathScepter]

Skullheart wrote...

ABCoLD wrote...

So guys. If we're finally getting to the
point of saying "The point of this argument isn't whether they're
terrorist or not..." could we please simply either say that they're good
or evil?

I don't want rationalization, I don't want
justification, I want your opinion on if they're a good or an evil
organization.

They are evil because BW wanted some humanoids to be shooted in the game.

If Cerberus would have stayed loyal to its ideals we could have counted with them against the reapers and we only have to deal against husks and the reapers.

Bioware can easily used the Batarians after the events of Arrival. They hate humans and ready to fight humans and the council. So the Reapers can give them the chance for the fight and ensure their surivial. OF course we know what happens to servant species of the Reapers. But they don't need to know that.

[Jackal7713]

jreezy wrote...

JGray wrote...
I'm also leaving out Project Overlord, since the ethics of experimenting on deactivated geth are gray and there's no sign that the Illusive Man or Cerberus were aware of the use of an autistic man in the experiment.

Riiight.

TIm knows of all Cerberus projects, thats why he never has more then 12 running at one time. I highly doubt TIm would not have had surveillance up and running throughout Project Overlord up until the loss of the facility. Loosing the facility was the only reason Sheppard was made aware of Project Overlord.

Modifié par Jackal7713, 23 janvier 2012 - 03:55 .

[MisterJB]

daqs wrote...
The human-batarian war wasn't started by the Council at all. The Alliance started colonizing the Verge in the 2160s, the batarians demanded that the Council stop them, and the Council refused. There is no evidence for any view that the Council pushed humanity into colonizing the Verge, and nobody in either game frames the question that way.

You are right. I used far too strong words. However, it is stated that it is convenient for the Council that humans push the batarians out and colonize the border, bascially sic us on the bear. As such, I feel that claiming that humanity brought it on themselves along with refusals of help is rather callous and a good example as to why humans can never expect any significant help from the alien races.

Even so, if humans could have chosen other areas to colonize, why pick the ones that are going to place them in direct conflict with the batarians?

As for the "excuse" of the Terminus Systems, it really isn't. Setting aside the fact that Ekuna was colonized eighty years before gamestart - and thus could have been in a period of relatively good relations between Citadel Space and the Terminus, decreasing the danger of war if a fleet intervened (the difference between the USSR mounting an intervention in Hungary in 1956 and mounting a hypothetical one in 1991 comes to mind)

Since there is nothing indicating what you suggest, we must assume that the relations back then were just as bad as now.

 - it's not clear that Ekuna was, in fact, considered to be part of Terminus space. It's quite clear that many of the systems you can visit in ME2 are not in the Terminus Systems (Illium, for instance, is explicitly stated to be as much a part of the Asari Republics as Noveria is a part of the Alliance), and Ekuna is never stated to have been there in the first place. It's simply inference, which may or may not be correct; you can't really assume anything based on that. Perhaps it was discovered by Citadel explorers but remained uncolonized until the quarians started squatting. We have no way of knowing.

The Traverse and the Verge are Council space, even if they do border the Terminus. Ekuna borders both the Perseus Veil and the Terminus Systems.
Even if it is not Terminus Space per say, sending a fleet there would be more dangerous than moving ships inside the Council's own borders.

Proposing that the Council did, in fact, want the geth to succeed is a more than a little ridiculous and hyperbolic.

 Only partially succeed. The humans were becoming strong enough to rival the Council races, why not use the geth to weaken them while we strengthen our own borders?
Obviously, they didn't want the geth to fully destroy a race that paid them homage.

Again, the Council didn't just send Shepard into the Traverse. They dispatched part of an STG regiment, and they seem to have been willing to send a fleet to back the STG up. Of course, they weren't doing that solely out of the goodness of their hearts; their own interests were obviously threatened, because of Saren's krogan cloning technique. But politics is the art of getting groups with divergent interests to work towards the same goals. And given their earlier chariness about sending a fleet into the Traverse, it seems that the Council was willing to risk war over Virmire. That's...pretty solid of them.

First, I must ask what made you think that the Council would ever send a fleet to Virmire.

And second, even if they did, I must discredit it. A krogan cloning facility would be a danger to the entire galaxy. The principle here is that as long as the threat was solely against humans, they barely did anything to help. This makes me question what is the point of humanity being a Council species.

Show of good faith. Besides, a benevolent neutrality is far, far better than opposition, and the Council had plenty of grounds for opposing Shepard.

Undoubtedly.

[Someone With Mass]

Dean_the_Young wrote...
Where'd they kill millions of Humans again?

Sorry. "Aliens" is a pretty generalized and broad term.

I meant every other race except the Reapers.

[DJBare]

Volus Warlord wrote...

There seems to be a misunderstanding.

The anti-Cerberus bunch are not anti-Cerberus out of concern for the other races. 

They are anti-Cerberus for a moral ego trip.

I wonder if you will be saying  the same  thing after TIM betrays Shepard, I fully expect my renegade Shepard to be betrayed by TIM in ME3, and here is the reason why, by helping Shepard to become that powerful TIM would see him as a threat to his own power, they are not best buddies!

[Doctoglethorpe]

Necessary evil is still evil.

/thread.

[atheelogos]

SNascimento wrote...

Resurrected Shepard.
.
Edit: * Engineered "accidental" explosions that exposed large groups of humans to element zero in order to create human biotics. This also created a large number of birth defects and quite possibly cancer.
.
Wasn't this years before Cerberus even existed? 

No Cerberus did that when they were still part of the Alliance.

[MisterJB]

Someone With Mass wrote...
Sorry. "Aliens" is a pretty generalized and broad term.

I meant every other race except the Reapers.

Right so, batarian attacks, the geth lead by a turian, the protheans, God only knows how many humans the Spectres have already killed, etc, etc.

[Dean_the_Young]

daqs wrote...

As things are, I have only played a very few Renegade Sheps with human-run Councils, and even those are for the variety, not the role-playing plausibility. I just can't seriously think that replacing the Council will work out in the long run. It's just too much of a gross overreach.

Long run? I agree. Short run? There's a lot that could have been done to re-order the galactic order in a new, more Human-advantageous, but still sustainable way.

Bioware certainly missed a good opportunity to play up differences in a Renegade Council. Rather than make the two nearily identical in result and actions, it could have cast them in different approaches that reach the same point.


Politically in Council Space, the Renegade Council could have been sold as 'reordering' the galaxy to the advantage of the lesser species. In a very vague abstract, we do get some hints of that: the Volus and Elcor have seats on the Human-dominated Council, which they never had before. Rather than solely being cast as benefiting the Alliance, the Renegade Council could have made a case that it was making a 'more equal' Council. Institutionally, that means weakening the Old Guard (the old Council), and elevating the minor species to give them buy-in to the system. By giving, say, the Hanar the influence and status of the Turians in the new Council, the Hanar would have incentive to support the system even if the Humans had disprortionate influence. Relatively, the Hanar have gained more clout.

A system that is disproportionately Human-influenced could still stand with the support of the minor species, and that wouldn't be hard considering the Minor Species were absolutely locked out of the old system. A Human-slanted order could still benefit other species' own interests.



Politically vis-a-vis the Terminus, the Renegade Council under new management could have been argued to have the basis to make new appeals to the Terminus. The Terminus doesn't have much bad history with the Alliance, after all, and the Human-dominated Council could be justified in making outreach and concessions to draw in Terminus factions repelled by the old Council. Less of those pesky Sentient Rights objections, perhaps, or new economic proposals. A fresh start, so to speak, that couldn't happen under the old Council.




A personal favorite alternative would have been if the Renegade Council/Alliance had believed in the Reapers, but not been believed by others. A call back to the ME1 theme of 'Humans recognize/address the problems other species don't want to', but in this case mixed with coup-politics. Even if the Alliance-dominated Council believed in the Reapers, that doesn't mean preparations would be easier: if other species simply think it's an Alliance claim to justify the coup, they wouldn't be enthusiastic about supporting any Alliance-led attempts to prepare. The Alliance could have been seen as the Boy Who Cried Wolf, and as galactic-leader is trying to drag a disbelieving and largely unwilling galaxy to prepare. Before the Reaper arrival, few share the convinction. That it would later be vindicated after the Arrival, however, could help strengthen the order (and Human position) in the post-Reaper galaxy. Sort of a 'we told you so' at the end of the day.




Same result in ME3, in the sense that the galaxy is in the same strenth relative to the other path, but different rhetoric and validations.

[atheelogos]

TheCreeper wrote...

People need to stop comparing Cerberus to STG and Spectres, they have government oversight and backing, Cerberus has the Illusive man, and no matter how big the Illusive man's ego is, he is not humanities government.

Government oversight for the Spectres?.... Sure they have government backing, they don't have gov oversight. Hell the council usually makes a special point to look the other way.

[Drone223]

DJBare wrote...

Volus Warlord wrote...

There seems to be a misunderstanding.

The anti-Cerberus bunch are not anti-Cerberus out of concern for the other races. 

They are anti-Cerberus for a moral ego trip.

I wonder if you will be saying  the same  thing after TIM betrays Shepard, I fully expect my renegade Shepard to be betrayed by TIM in ME3, and here is the reason why, by helping Shepard to become that powerful TIM would see him as a threat to his own power, they are not best buddies!

Pretty much by the end of the SM TIM had no further use for Shepard 

[Dean_the_Young]

Someone With Mass wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...
Where'd they kill millions of Humans again?

Sorry. "Aliens" is a pretty generalized and broad term.

I meant every other race except the Reapers.

I'll give you the Collectors as a freebie.


Still, the Terminus and Batarians in particular can easily eclipse the known Cerberus casualties to date.

The Cerberus death toll is hard to quantify for a number of reasons. Not knowing most of them for one thing, but the variations of scale and culpability. Do we consider health complications from cancer from the biotic exposures as a Cerberus death, even though at that time Cerberus was still Alliance? How do we separate intentional acts (Project Trap door) from unintentional accidents (Overlord) from rogue Cells acting in voilation (Teltin)? Moreover, do we recognize times when Cerberus saved lives in the long run as a mitigating factor (Akuze, for a Sole Survivor who became a Spectre for it)?


Cerberus isn't out for mass murder in the period up to ME3. When it sets out to kill people for the purpose of killing people, they've been precise. When they do mad science, it's double digits. When mad science runs amock, sometimes it gets into the tripple digits.

Whereas on the Terminus frontier, slaver raids taking four-digit casualties or more aren't exactly unknown.

[Someone With Mass]

MisterJB wrote...

Someone With Mass wrote...
Sorry. "Aliens" is a pretty generalized and broad term.

I meant every other race except the Reapers.

Right so, batarian attacks, the geth lead by a turian, the protheans, God only knows how many humans the Spectres have already killed, etc, etc.

Have they killed over three hundred thousand humans by themselves? TIM did. With that funny little accident on Horizon. He used that colony as bait for the Collectors to just confirm a hunch. Then there's all those projects where the whole staff is killed just because he refuses to install any security precautions in case something like that happens.

It's pretty hypocritical to claim that they're protecting humanity, while they show no remorse about killing thousands of humans and write them off as "necessary losses" even though they are not.

[Dean_the_Young]

daqs wrote...

MisterJB wrote...

Lies. The Council wanted humans to settle the Traverse, they wanted us to drive the batarians out (due to them being hostile to other council races despite their embassy) and strengthen the borders of Council space. But when we ran into trouble, they refused to help.

Sure, they had some ulterior motives. This is a hegemonic system, not chickies-duckies-and-bunnies land.

Looking at it from the Council's perspective, it's clear that the human-batarian conflict is supposed to be a limited war. Obviously the Council would prefer that the humans win, clear out the Traverse, solidify their control of the Verge, and reduce the security threat from that corner of the galaxy. They may even have genuine humanitarian - well, not "human"itarian, but you get the idea - concerns about batarian slaving. But at the same time, escalating the conflict could end up as a galactic confrontation: the humans bring in a turian fleet, so the batarians rally Terminus warlords around their standard, and suddenly you've got a grand melee unparalleled since the Krogan Rebellions.

At the same time, it's clear that the Council does help in some limited ways. The Alliance does have the opportunity to develop military technology in cooperation with the other Citadel races, and while it's not openly stated that, for instance, the Normandy is going to be used in the Traverse, where else are top-of-the-line human space-naval assets supposed to go? And when faced with a further threat to human colonies in the Traverse, the geth, the Council elevated Shepard to Spectre status, and sold out their most trusted operative to do it.

You may argue that the Council's limited response was inappropriately low, and that given the state of the Terminus warlords as shown in ME2, the Council's concerns about provoking a galactic war were ridiculous. But those are failures of degree, not failures of purpose. It's hard to strike the proper balance for any of these things.

One of the shames of ME2 was that it wasted all opportunity to set up the Terminus as a significant faction, or faction of factions.

For all the concerns vis-a-vis the Terminus, the barbarians are remarkably under-supported as a major threat to the Council. Most of our time in the Terminus was spent on the Council frontier, and most of the worlds we could see were actually owned by Council species, or irrelevant groups.

If you see the ME3 galaxy map, the Terminus is actually pretty small vis-a-vis the Council, and without unity it hardly has much to qualify as a 'Cold War' rival.

[vvDRUCILLAvv]

Cerberus is as crooked as a dogs hind leg. I hope they go up in flames.

[Skullheart]

Someone With Mass wrote...

Have they killed over three hundred thousand humans by themselves? TIM did. With that funny little accident on Horizon. He used that colony as bait for the Collectors to just confirm a hunch. Then there's all those projects where the whole staff is killed just because he refuses to install any security precautions in case something like that happens.

It's pretty hypocritical to claim that they're protecting humanity, while they show no remorse about killing thousands of humans and write them off as "necessary losses" even though they are not.

So, it was better an attack to a random undefended colony instead? Taking more humans than they did in Horizon.

By making Horizona bait they were ready, and saved half of the colony. Losing half of the colony is better than losing a full and more populated colony.

[N00blet666]

MisterJB wrote...

JGray wrote...
* Engineered "accidental" explosions that exposed large groups of humans to element zero in order to create human biotics. This also created a large number of birth defects and quite possibly cancer.

But also the first human biotics. I would have preferred less destructive methods but you can't make an ommelet without cracking a few eggs.

* Experimented on an autistic human child in order to amplify her biotics. The drugs may have heightened her autism, making her incapable of living a normal life.

Speculation. You can only prove that the drugs harmed her once. And, even then, it had no lasting side effects.

* Engaged in industrial espionage, sabotage of political candidates, and destructive black ops campaigns within the media.

This is no different than what the STG or the Spectres do. Why shouldn't humanity be allowed to defend ourselves?

* Assassinated a Pope with "pro-alien" leanings.

 Wrong, they actually wanted a Pope with a forgiving attitude to the salarians so that they could form an Alliance against the turians.

 

Murdered an Alliance Rear Admiral investigating them.

Kahoku stuck his nose where it didn't belong. Protecting the experiments to create expendable shock troopers (that you have already admitted were acceptable) was more important than his life.

* Kidnapped, tortured, and experimented on Asari to better understand biotics. Very unlikely the Asari were released when experiments were done.

The asari are the most powerful race in the galaxy, they are one of humanity's greatest rivals. I feel for the asari sacrificed but we need an advantage against them. That projected allowed to stop Matriarch Eraza, a biotic supremacist, from seizing power.
Also, it's possible that they chose criminal asari.

* Provided arms to criminal syndicates. Theoretically to allow human criminal enterprises to overcome Batarian criminal enterprises.

Criminal groups kill each other. So?

* Destroyed a vessel and killed all hands on board in order to assassinate an important Turian.

The Spectres and STG also perform assassinations.

* The kidnapping, torture, and eventual death of Paul Grayson. Purposefully forcing a drug addict to relapse and then infecting him with Reaper technology.

Horrific, yes. But the Reapers are coming. We need to learn our enemy's secrets.

Damn bro you must really like Cerberus. Too bad you will be forced to kill their agents and possibly TIM and not even have a choice in the matter in ME3.

[MisterJB]

Skullheart wrote...
So, it was better an attack to a random undefended colony instead? Taking more humans than they did in Horizon.

By making Horizona bait they were ready, and saved half of the colony. Losing half of the colony is better than losing a full and more populated colony.

The logic is sound but, to be fair, it was a very stupid trap.
Not warn Shepard of anything until the attack is already underway and then expect him to take out the Collectors all by himself? Yeah.
How about...warn Shepard of what is going on so he'll be nearer or on Horizon, maybe he can even convince the colonists of what will happen and there will be fewer casualties, send some ships as back up, anything at all?

[Someone With Mass]

Skullheart wrote...

So, it was better an attack to a random undefended colony instead? Taking more humans than they did in Horizon.

By making Horizona bait they were ready, and saved half of the colony. Losing half of the colony is better than losing a full and more populated colony.

Those defenses Horizon had didn't work either until Shepard arrived on the scene.

And again, all that for what? To confirm that the Collectors were working with the Reapers? Doesn't take that much to confirm that connection.