http://social.biowar.../index/15854394
===
Disclaimer: TL;DR applies because, holy bat sheets this is a long one.
Grab a snack. I mean it.
===
The really short summary:
An ME3 remake/recast in which Cerberus is allied to the Crucible effort, while still a frequent antagonist on missions.
===
Before I go into the big ‘Cerberus is re-rolled’ AU, I think it’s worth starting by recognizing what I believe the role Cerberus actually played in the galaxy of canon was. Accusations of the Sith Empire are frequent, and not entirely unfounded thanks to the effectively unlimited supply of ground forces thanks to implants, but aren’t entirely accurate either.
In truth, Cerberus was actually a minor military power: potent enough to enforce its will on largely defenseless worlds, skilled at surgical strikes and violence of action, but still small enough that occupation was difficult in terms of manpower and resources, and effective defenders could deter and defeat their strike teams. Cerberus operated primarily at the margins of the war, away from the front lines and relying on deception, surprise, and the occasional technological gambit rather than massed forces. Though Cerberus forces were skilled, with implant-troopers canonically being around top-tier Alliance soldier levels in terms of performance, and though implant-indoctrination allowed rapid replacement of losses and great ground forces, the Cerberus war machine was still modest and limited by the ships and vessels it could field. While most of Cerberus’s war materials can be justified by being created by fabricators (particularly small-arms and armors), Cerberus’s force of ships shuttles were the remnants of the pre-ME2 military buildup of Cerberus, the remains of the pre-Lazarus bankruptcy and post-Retribution remnants that evaded the Turian intervention.
Cerberus’s role and behavior was not of a conquering empire, but that of the opportunist. All major Cerberus operations have been various forms of targets of opportunity, almost always taken with a short-term goal in mind. Surkesh was kill the Krogan female, likely to prevent the Turian-Krogan alliance. Eden Prime was taken after Alliance fleets had abandoned the sector to the Reapers, who themselves were preoccupied with Earth. The Turian shipyards of Aephus (the Zaeed cameo mission of ME3) were targeted due to relative defenses, which fore-warned reinforcements were able to supplement and defeat the attackers. The Turian Bomb, Tuchanka Ground Canon, and Thessian Beacon operations were also targets of opportunity, timed for maximum distraction and maximum effect.
The point of this isn’t to critique or criticize the writing, but rather to recognize the actual proportions of Cerberus: a skilled but limited minor military power that relied on strategic initiative and planning to compensate for limited hardware. While Cerberus was able to organize resources for a number of high-profile events, these were always limited in scope and duration, with the longest protracted engagement being the Cerberus occupation of Omega… itself turned into a population-control war of internment camps rather than an occupation-insurgency conflict.
But the point: Cerberus could have a lot of bodies, and a lot of small arms, but it was never a match for the fleets at play by the other main factions, including the Alliance. Its survival always depended on others being either unable to find them, or too busy with the Reapers to try. While it must have a well-hidden industrial base of fabricators and resource suppliers to maintain it, it’s greatest limiting factor is infrastructure-heavy hardware: ships, major bases, and galaxy-integrated logistics hubs that don’t have to smuggle everything.
===
How that Plays In
===
Why do I care about how Cerberus was composed?
Because the Alliance after Earth is almost the opposite: with over 99% of the population stuck on Earth and all the core industry lost with it, the entirety of the Alliance war machine after the Arrival are the fleets Hacket saved and the relatively small colonies to support them. While the Fleets are considerable, the army is not: with all the garrisons and potential recruits of Earth lost, Hackett is limited to the men he carried with him, the garrison posts, and the civilian recruits who will require time and training to become experienced and effective. Hackett and Udina are stewards of a resource-colony system with no homeworld: raw materials, but little processing potential.
The yin-yang should start to be apparent now. The Alliance has few soldiers but plenty of ships and excess civilians: Cerberus has few ships and a way to make special forces-tier soldiers out of civilians. Cerberus has a known base of fabricators that are limited by raw materials and the ability to move them: the Alliance has colonies dedicated to providing raw materials and effective trade routes, but has lost its normal consumer base. An alliance would be sensible: two nominal defenders of Humanity, each with complimentary strengths.
But who would be the leading partner?
This is the question that re-defines the role and friction of Cerberus as a quasi-ally, quasi-antagonist, because the obvious answer is not necessarily the right one.
To most people, the obvious answer would be the Alliance: they have more people, they have more ships, they have more allies because they’re the ones on the Council. Cerberus is that little terrorist group everyone loves to hate, and the Alliance is the fourth superpower of the galaxy. Aliens should naturally prefer them over the human-supremacists, and most humans should have no tolerance for terrorists. There shouldn’t be any comparison, except…
…well, most humans, about 99% of them, were thrown to the Reapers when Hackett retreated, and the colonies have the most reason to harbor resentments for the Alliance’s competence and history. In the last three years the Alliance has consistently and repeatedly been taken by surprise and unawares when it comes to defending Humanity: the Eden Prime War, the Collector Abductions, and now the Armageddon that had already started in the Hegemony weeks earlier. While Hackett has presided over the greatest military defeat in Human history, and while Udina is finding out that the Council really does deserve the bear-and-dog analogy, Cerberus is vindicated once again. The group that actually acted to protect the colonies, the group that stopped the Collectors, the pro-Human extremists are now looking mighty reasonable when they can honestly say that they saw the Council’s abandonment coming and tried to warn people. The Alliance, placid and ineffective, doesn’t have what it takes… and it’s so desperate now that it’s grabbing on the first potential salvation it sees, regardless of the consequences on the galaxy. Why else seek to cure the genophage? And it doesn’t help that Cerberus has its finger on almost every dirty secret of the galactic establishment…
Cerberus is in such a potent political position, and the Alliance so bad, that nearly all the villainy of ME3 of canon could have been solved by a smart word and a gun rather than a curb-stomp.
And this is the heart of the Cerberus reinterpretation, as you shall gradually see.
===
A thousand words in, and we’re just starting the actual AU. Observe the over-thinking that warrants the title ‘TL;DR.’
This is going to describe the changes in depiction and progress of the canon game in a broadly sequential order, with a round-up at the end to emphasize the key plot changes. The point of this is to have minimal gameplay changes to the canon, but rather heavy story changes instead: you still fight Cerberus, frequently, in what is broadly a proxy war over who will actually lead Humanity. The difference is that this is depicted as in-fighting between nominal but untrusting allies, rather than open conflict.
The first of these changes really occurs before the game even starts, in expanded universe content. Cerberus’s trickery and occupation of Omega in Invasion is much the same, but the first real difference begins with a whole new comic of the ‘Homeworlds’ series: not of any species still alive, but of the long-extinct Inusannon…
===
Homeworld: Ilos
A short comic that would be part of the Homeworlds series, a capstone of the pre-release buildup.
Beginning with a description of the world, homeworld for a long extinct species, Ilos would be a reach-back to the great un-answered question of ‘whatever happened to the Conduit after ME1?’
The answer, apparent pretty early on, is that the Council sent the STG and a small science team to secure the Ilos Relay and ruins. Relying more on stealth than size, they were there to investigate Shepard’s claims, looking for the Vigil VI (depicted as having burned out before they arrived) and securing the relay (something too important for the Council to leave to the Terminus).
The Terminus has other ideas, though, and a mercenary task force from the Blue Suns appears to seize the site and the priceless Conduit. There’s fighting, the STG puts up a stiff resistance, but a betrayal by a Turian scientist leads to the mercenaries wiping out the defenders and securing the site. Turian scientist turns out to be a mole, handsomely rewarded, and boards the shuttle tasked with picking up and carrying the Conduit away. The Blue Suns commander greedily anticipates using the Conduit as leverage for promotion, and getting his own pocket Terminus empire.
Expectations are subverted, however, when once inside the shuttle the Turian changes personality and comments that he hates acting the traitor against his species. Exchanging meaningful nods with other members of the crew, including not just Turians but some Batarians and Humans, a number of the crew of multiple species turn around and cut down the rest, taking control of the shuttle. The shuttle soon drops out of communication, rabbits away to FTL, and the Blue Suns commander watches his future fly away at FTL velocity. The comic concludes by saying that no one knows who took the Conduit, or where it ultimately ended up.
The ending of the comic is potent but ambiguous. Who took the Conduit? For what? And what did the Turian mean by ‘his species’, when it was a multi-species back-stab of the Blue Suns that stole it away?
These are just the first hints at what is to come. (Spoiler: Cerberus.)
===
The Pre-Invasion Setting
In the brief prologue we have, the presence of Cerberus is open from the start: Cerberus has been cashing in on their post-Collector popularity, as well as the political backswing that has occurred among the more nativist Humans after Anderson’s actions in Retribution were subsequently followed by most everyone finally accepting the Collector Base evidence as proof of the Reapers. Between a strong PR campaign tying themselves to being the first in the fight against the Collectors and Reapers, and the nativist backlash Anderson sparked by attacking them despite knowing their opposition to the Reapers, Cerberus is reveling in a wave of undeniable popularity support that the Council governments hate but can’t ignore. It doesn’t help that Cerberus is loudest in support for Commander Shepard after Arrival, emphasizing their ties with the First Human Spectre and Hero of the Citadel for legitimacy by association.
Resting both on their recent achievements and their ‘capital’ of Omega in the safety of the Terminus Systems, Cerberus has bounced back from Retribution and achieved a public presence like never before. Between offering pro-Human services in the Terminus from Omega, launching an open secret investment/preparation campaign across the colonies, and doing more to disrupt anti-Human piracy from within the Terminus than the Alliance has managed in years, Cerberus has made an appealing case for itself as a Human advocacy group that more and more accept. Gifts to colonies like small-arms fabricators, technical advice and intelligence sharing, and Cerberus-oriented investments in preparing for the Reapers are too useful to deny… even though they are also accompanied by further infiltration and recruiting efforts by Cerberus.
It’s not like Cerberus evils have disappeared, mind you: there are still assassinations, implicit racism, and evil science. Omega is also not terribly far from canon, except that Humans are treated as first-class citizens in what is otherwise an effective police state station. It’s also still preaching the need for Human self-reliance that borders on xenophobia. But what’s important is that it’s making a strong, strong PR push that it is a legitimate pro-Human group that is for the greater good of Humanity. This is particularly pushed by Cerberus’s undeclared-but-public-secret Ambassador Cerberus, the Petrosky of Cerberus Public Relations if you will.
The tone and style of this push would be visible in pre-release info, codexes, and other medium. In enemy forces profiles, for example, Cerberus Troopers would be noted as being largely composed of volunteers, and that Cerberus conditioning is as notable in how it secures the loyalty of its forces as it is in boosting their abilities. Cerberus Daily News would have a build-up story of Cerberus propaganda drives and defense-related investments in the colonies. Etc.
===
Tutorial: Earth
Cerberus has a modest presence but minor role in the revamped Tutorial. While it starts with the kid with the fighter toy now having Cerberus colors, the tone of the Alliance-Cerberus relationship is really set by Anderson: Cerberus representatives (possibly Jacob or Miranda) were sharing data with the Defense Committee just before Shepard was called, a fact Anderson dislikes but has no choice but to expect. While Anderson has infinite support for Shepard in particular, it’s pretty clear from him and Vega that Shepard is being kept under house arrest as much to distance him from Cerberus as anything Shepard actually did. Anderson more or less establishes that Cerberus has been using Shepard’s name and the Collectors to cover up their true nature, but that they’re doing too many useful things to reject outright.
Shepard goes to the committee, yada yada. The Committee thinks that, thanks to preparations and tech gifts from Cerberus and the Collector Base (debris), the Alliance and galaxy as a whole have a chance to fight off the Reapers: their raising this idea of conventional victory is intended to delegitimize it as half a minute later the Reapers are landing, and the Alliance is clearly getting its butt handed to them. While the resistance is a good deal stiffer if you Kept the Base than if not (the Alliance dreadnaught/cruiser being able to destroy the Reaper with a particle beam, rather than blow off a leg with its canon), Earth is still falling. Anderson and Shepard flee, and talk, and vow to get the Council’s help.
The first direct presence of Cerberus comes at the wounded soldiers/bridge scene: after Shepard would advance over the bridge more Cannibals come out, making the bridge too dangerous to pass again. They are promptly blown away when a Trooper jet-boots down near Shepard and tosses a grenade over the gap. The Trooper identifies itself as Cerberus, here to defend Humanity, and is told by Anderson (who clearly doesn’t trust it) to stay behind and look after the pilots. The trooper obeys, and gives an unsteady Alliance pilot a hand up and talks about falling back to a rendezvous point. If you stay around you might hear the pilot ask how Cerberus knows the Alliance rendezvous point, but the Trooper claims it doesn’t matter.
So goes our benign first impression of Cerberus: a positive one, with Cerberus appearing to come to the rescue. Anderson’s suspicion is present, though, and as they cross the bridge Anderson wonders how many other Cerberus troops are hidden on Earth… and what they’re playing for, since a static defense won’t work. Cerberus can’t hope to keep the planet from falling, but it wouldn’t waste the troops without something to gain from it.
Shepard and Anderson go to the radio, the Normandy comes as the cavalry, and things pretty much go as canon. We might see a few Cerberus troopers helping the Alliance provide covering fire as the shuttles evacuate civilians, but otherwise it’s clear that Earth is falling, Cerberus or no. Anderson stays behind to lead the fight, and figure out what Cerberus intends to do on Earth, as Alliance and Cerberus Kodiak shuttles fly by.
Cue sad music as Earth is fled, left to fall to the Reapers. Passing Mars, though, a call comes in from Hackett…
===
Priority: Mars
The Mars Archive is a war zone, as a Reaper detachment of Harvesters and troops were dropped to take out the archives as the rest of the Reaper forces take Earth. Alliance forces, never terribly large at the start, were mauled… and gratefully accepted the unexpected offer of Cerberus help.
Big mistake, as no sooner were they inside than the Cerberus troops shot their way into the Archive. Mars remains the first place we fight Cerberus, after an initial, external skirmish with the last Reaper forces.
Cerberus antagonism isn’t clear until Liara’s entrance, as the bodies outside are blamed on Reaper troops, though the execution-shots are a sign that all is not right. With Liara’s near-death entry, though, it becomes clear that Cerberus isn’t interested in protecting the base residents as much as it is interesting in seizing the archives for itself. With Liara claiming to know about the Crucible, the race is on.
No major changes are necessary: the reveal of husk-like technology raises questions about the Cerberus forces on Earth, the Virmire Survivor is still suspicious about Shepard’s past ties, and there might be a few more Alliance survivors left alive to recount the betrayal of Cerberus. Otherwise it’s a fight against a determined, merciless defender to the Archive. Things only really change once we get to talk to The Illusive Man.
TIM greets us by revealing that we’re already too late because Cerberus has already finished deleting all the data. Claiming that the betrayal of the Alliance was a necessity because the Alliance wouldn’t have destroyed the Archives, TIM argues that a Reaper capture would have been a disaster had the Reapers determined what was in. Liara is able to only salvage just enough data to show that the Crucible exists… while TIM claims to have all of it. TIM begins to propose a partnership between Cerberus and the Alliance to build the device, a prospect the player can either initially reject (due to the most recent betrayal) or approve of (‘if it really is true, you might be right’), but the discovery of the EDI-bot still in the achives interrupts the discussion and leads to the chase, with the prospect of being able to steal the data out of the robot’s head and not have to strike a devil’s bargain.
Cue the chase, and cue the same general outcome… though TIM orders EDI-bot to not kill the VS. EDI-bot still gets shot, though and by the time Shepard reaches the Citadel, the unfortunate truth is found: they have no plans for the Crucible. Cerberus alone retains them, and that is a Bad Thing.
===
Citadel: The Devil Dog’s Bargain
When Shepard reaches the Citadel, there’s a party waiting for him: Udina wants Shepard, now, and the Council has a very unique applicant: Cerberus, offering a trade for the Crucible blueprints.
It isn’t the Illusive Man himself in the chamber, though he has a hologram projector to participate. The ball holder is the Cerberus Ambassador, who provides a devil’s advocate position throughout the discussion, allowing Cerberus to raise points or counter arguments that the Illusive Man personally doesn’t want to get bogged down in.
Ambassador Cerberus is a cool and clearly intelligent human said to have been a former Human diplomat who, for various reasons, defected to Cerberus. Ambassador Cerberus introduces the idea of the Crucible directly: a Prothean super-weapon of immense power that could transmute e-zero into a worthless lump. This is a ground-breaking claim, contrary to current understandings of Mass Effect physics, the Illusive Man claims that Cerberus has already either established a theoretical understanding of this (if the Base was destroyed), or already proven the concept on a micro-scale (if the Base was kept). If the concept were scaled up, even Reapers would be vulnerable to having their cores destroyed. Cerberus is willing to trade the Crucible plans in exchange for a Grand Alliance.
The Council is more than a little skeptical of this white elephant project: the proposed resources are massive, and they haven’t had time to have their own scientists review or decipher the data. Cerberus is also proposing that all these resources be given to Humanity, which is a massive resource transfer when everyone is concerned with protecting themselves. Still, at this point they don’t have to contribute if they don’t want to, which means it’s a Human problem and not theirs.
The other half of Cerberus’s proposal is far more appealing, though: Cerberus proposes an alliance, in which Cerberus would share information, technology, and commit its resources to the galactic defense. The allure of free mass effect advances derived from the Collector Base (regardless of status), more forces, and common cause is appealing. The Council Races, too busy to want needless fighting with Cerberus is it can be avoided, would be very interested if it weren’t for one thing Cerberus is asking for in return:
Spectre-status for The Illusive Man.
The implications of Spectre status (elaborated via dialogue options) are massive: if the Illusive Man is sanctioned by the Council, the galactic community would effectively not only be legalizing the number one terrorist organization in the galaxy and pardoning all past actions, but legalizing any future abuses as well. Spectre status extends to everyone under a Spectre’s authority, a fact that has worked to Shepard’s favor many times (as Ambassador Cerberus will challenge if you did Garrus’s loyalty mission in ME2) but which would also apply to pretty much everything Cerberus would do and has done in the past. The Illusive Man is also openly admitting that he would use the power to prioritize pro-Human interests: while Ambassador Cerberus will note that plenty of Spectres have put their species first and foremost, most notably Saren, the prospect of Cerberus simply abusing Spectre status with impunity is a tough sell: Spectre status is an easily privilege to abuse, and Cerberus is an abuse-prone organization.
Ultimately, it’s a deal that will be made. Shepard can be grudging for the need for the Crucible or openly supportive, but once Ambassador Cerberus/TIM point out that they would only be keeping it as long as they prove that Cerberus is worth the trouble, and thus unlikely to abuse it too much, the Council relents. The Council gives off a tone that implies that with Cerberus on board it will be up to them to assist the Alliance with the Crucible while the Council races prioritize their own, but Cerberus and the Alliance are effectively wedded.
And just in time, too, because no sooner has TIM closed his hologram and Ambassador Cerberus, the official public face of Cerberus, faces some uneasy stares than Bailly interrupts the Council session to report that Human refugees are flooding the Citadel… through the Conduit.
To which Ambassador Cerberus says they are right on time, clearly expecting this.
As Shepard and the Council overlook the Praesidium from the Council Tower, the Conduit is shown to be flashing, flashing, flashing. Vehicles, Kodiaks painted in Cerberus colors, are flying out of the Conduit. With media-personalities like Al-Jilani watching with cameras rolling, the first shuttles land, doors opening. Cerberus troopers are the first out, and turn to help out clearly dazed and desperate refugees who are led to clearly unprepared C-SEC officers who have been pointing loaded weapons at the new arrivals.
As Shepard, Udina, and the Council turn towards a smug Ambassador Cerberus, he claims that unlike the Alliance which planned to flee Earth, Cerberus planned to stay. Cerberus has hidden the Conduit on Earth, and is using it to evacuate civilians to safety, while Cerberus fights on. The Council is taken aback, afraid that the Reapers will soon follow, but Udina and Hackett realize the real effect: Cerberus is making Earth a high-priority world for the entire galaxy, and using both the PR of refugees on the Citadel and the risk of the Reapers recovering the Conduit to pressure the Council to help Earth. The longer the Council refuses to help, the greater the risk: the sooner they do, the better for Humanity.
Ambassador Cerberus, waving aside fears that the Reapers will find the Conduit, leaves to implement Cerberus’s first Spectre privilege: turning a portion of the Citadel docks into a holding area/refugee area for the incoming Human refugees… and others species too, as an after-thought.
===
With Cerberus setting itself up as a legitimate actor, and having stolen a march on the galactic front pages, it’s a relief to the remaining Alliance leadership to be able to take a breath, regroup, and figure out a way forward. With the loss of Acturius and Anderson on Earth, the leading figures of Humanity are now Hackett and Udina, with Shepard being a fly on the wall as the two talk shop.
Both Hackett and Udina agree that the Crucible is ultimately going to be the real war-winner for Humanity. While Collector technology will help with the resistance and drive up Reaper casualties, the fall of Earth so quickly leaves Humanity in a bad position. Even if, if, the Reapers could be beaten conventionally (something Hacket rejects), it would take so long that Earth would be long-dead by then. Only the Crucible could conceivably even the playing field enough to beat the Reapers. It just is going to cost a lot, possibly more than the Alliance can provide. So in that sense, Cerberus help is great… but neither Hackett or Udina believe relying on Cerberus is a good thing.
Here is where the Turian Councilor comes in. Equally suspicious of Cerberus and their offers, but also needing a favor, he makes the offer of a strengthened Turian-Human alliance in exchange for the rescue of the Primarch. Turian fleets to help retake Earth, and the resources of an empire and all its vassals to support the Crucible, if the Alliance could help keep Palaven from falling as Earth did.
It appears a pretty win-win offer regardless of your take on Cerberus, and one Hackett is fully behind. With the Alliance navy intact but lacking a home, and the Turians the best force to help maintain/supply them, the alliance is a no-brainer means to bolster resistance against the Reapers that would also help guard against Cerberus influence. Go forth, young Shepard, to Palaven.
===
Disclaimer: TL;DR applies because, holy bat sheets this is a long one.
Grab a snack. I mean it.
===
The really short summary:
An ME3 remake/recast in which Cerberus is allied to the Crucible effort, while still a frequent antagonist on missions.
===
Before I go into the big ‘Cerberus is re-rolled’ AU, I think it’s worth starting by recognizing what I believe the role Cerberus actually played in the galaxy of canon was. Accusations of the Sith Empire are frequent, and not entirely unfounded thanks to the effectively unlimited supply of ground forces thanks to implants, but aren’t entirely accurate either.
In truth, Cerberus was actually a minor military power: potent enough to enforce its will on largely defenseless worlds, skilled at surgical strikes and violence of action, but still small enough that occupation was difficult in terms of manpower and resources, and effective defenders could deter and defeat their strike teams. Cerberus operated primarily at the margins of the war, away from the front lines and relying on deception, surprise, and the occasional technological gambit rather than massed forces. Though Cerberus forces were skilled, with implant-troopers canonically being around top-tier Alliance soldier levels in terms of performance, and though implant-indoctrination allowed rapid replacement of losses and great ground forces, the Cerberus war machine was still modest and limited by the ships and vessels it could field. While most of Cerberus’s war materials can be justified by being created by fabricators (particularly small-arms and armors), Cerberus’s force of ships shuttles were the remnants of the pre-ME2 military buildup of Cerberus, the remains of the pre-Lazarus bankruptcy and post-Retribution remnants that evaded the Turian intervention.
Cerberus’s role and behavior was not of a conquering empire, but that of the opportunist. All major Cerberus operations have been various forms of targets of opportunity, almost always taken with a short-term goal in mind. Surkesh was kill the Krogan female, likely to prevent the Turian-Krogan alliance. Eden Prime was taken after Alliance fleets had abandoned the sector to the Reapers, who themselves were preoccupied with Earth. The Turian shipyards of Aephus (the Zaeed cameo mission of ME3) were targeted due to relative defenses, which fore-warned reinforcements were able to supplement and defeat the attackers. The Turian Bomb, Tuchanka Ground Canon, and Thessian Beacon operations were also targets of opportunity, timed for maximum distraction and maximum effect.
The point of this isn’t to critique or criticize the writing, but rather to recognize the actual proportions of Cerberus: a skilled but limited minor military power that relied on strategic initiative and planning to compensate for limited hardware. While Cerberus was able to organize resources for a number of high-profile events, these were always limited in scope and duration, with the longest protracted engagement being the Cerberus occupation of Omega… itself turned into a population-control war of internment camps rather than an occupation-insurgency conflict.
But the point: Cerberus could have a lot of bodies, and a lot of small arms, but it was never a match for the fleets at play by the other main factions, including the Alliance. Its survival always depended on others being either unable to find them, or too busy with the Reapers to try. While it must have a well-hidden industrial base of fabricators and resource suppliers to maintain it, it’s greatest limiting factor is infrastructure-heavy hardware: ships, major bases, and galaxy-integrated logistics hubs that don’t have to smuggle everything.
===
How that Plays In
===
Why do I care about how Cerberus was composed?
Because the Alliance after Earth is almost the opposite: with over 99% of the population stuck on Earth and all the core industry lost with it, the entirety of the Alliance war machine after the Arrival are the fleets Hacket saved and the relatively small colonies to support them. While the Fleets are considerable, the army is not: with all the garrisons and potential recruits of Earth lost, Hackett is limited to the men he carried with him, the garrison posts, and the civilian recruits who will require time and training to become experienced and effective. Hackett and Udina are stewards of a resource-colony system with no homeworld: raw materials, but little processing potential.
The yin-yang should start to be apparent now. The Alliance has few soldiers but plenty of ships and excess civilians: Cerberus has few ships and a way to make special forces-tier soldiers out of civilians. Cerberus has a known base of fabricators that are limited by raw materials and the ability to move them: the Alliance has colonies dedicated to providing raw materials and effective trade routes, but has lost its normal consumer base. An alliance would be sensible: two nominal defenders of Humanity, each with complimentary strengths.
But who would be the leading partner?
This is the question that re-defines the role and friction of Cerberus as a quasi-ally, quasi-antagonist, because the obvious answer is not necessarily the right one.
To most people, the obvious answer would be the Alliance: they have more people, they have more ships, they have more allies because they’re the ones on the Council. Cerberus is that little terrorist group everyone loves to hate, and the Alliance is the fourth superpower of the galaxy. Aliens should naturally prefer them over the human-supremacists, and most humans should have no tolerance for terrorists. There shouldn’t be any comparison, except…
…well, most humans, about 99% of them, were thrown to the Reapers when Hackett retreated, and the colonies have the most reason to harbor resentments for the Alliance’s competence and history. In the last three years the Alliance has consistently and repeatedly been taken by surprise and unawares when it comes to defending Humanity: the Eden Prime War, the Collector Abductions, and now the Armageddon that had already started in the Hegemony weeks earlier. While Hackett has presided over the greatest military defeat in Human history, and while Udina is finding out that the Council really does deserve the bear-and-dog analogy, Cerberus is vindicated once again. The group that actually acted to protect the colonies, the group that stopped the Collectors, the pro-Human extremists are now looking mighty reasonable when they can honestly say that they saw the Council’s abandonment coming and tried to warn people. The Alliance, placid and ineffective, doesn’t have what it takes… and it’s so desperate now that it’s grabbing on the first potential salvation it sees, regardless of the consequences on the galaxy. Why else seek to cure the genophage? And it doesn’t help that Cerberus has its finger on almost every dirty secret of the galactic establishment…
Cerberus is in such a potent political position, and the Alliance so bad, that nearly all the villainy of ME3 of canon could have been solved by a smart word and a gun rather than a curb-stomp.
And this is the heart of the Cerberus reinterpretation, as you shall gradually see.
===
A thousand words in, and we’re just starting the actual AU. Observe the over-thinking that warrants the title ‘TL;DR.’
This is going to describe the changes in depiction and progress of the canon game in a broadly sequential order, with a round-up at the end to emphasize the key plot changes. The point of this is to have minimal gameplay changes to the canon, but rather heavy story changes instead: you still fight Cerberus, frequently, in what is broadly a proxy war over who will actually lead Humanity. The difference is that this is depicted as in-fighting between nominal but untrusting allies, rather than open conflict.
The first of these changes really occurs before the game even starts, in expanded universe content. Cerberus’s trickery and occupation of Omega in Invasion is much the same, but the first real difference begins with a whole new comic of the ‘Homeworlds’ series: not of any species still alive, but of the long-extinct Inusannon…
===
Homeworld: Ilos
A short comic that would be part of the Homeworlds series, a capstone of the pre-release buildup.
Beginning with a description of the world, homeworld for a long extinct species, Ilos would be a reach-back to the great un-answered question of ‘whatever happened to the Conduit after ME1?’
The answer, apparent pretty early on, is that the Council sent the STG and a small science team to secure the Ilos Relay and ruins. Relying more on stealth than size, they were there to investigate Shepard’s claims, looking for the Vigil VI (depicted as having burned out before they arrived) and securing the relay (something too important for the Council to leave to the Terminus).
The Terminus has other ideas, though, and a mercenary task force from the Blue Suns appears to seize the site and the priceless Conduit. There’s fighting, the STG puts up a stiff resistance, but a betrayal by a Turian scientist leads to the mercenaries wiping out the defenders and securing the site. Turian scientist turns out to be a mole, handsomely rewarded, and boards the shuttle tasked with picking up and carrying the Conduit away. The Blue Suns commander greedily anticipates using the Conduit as leverage for promotion, and getting his own pocket Terminus empire.
Expectations are subverted, however, when once inside the shuttle the Turian changes personality and comments that he hates acting the traitor against his species. Exchanging meaningful nods with other members of the crew, including not just Turians but some Batarians and Humans, a number of the crew of multiple species turn around and cut down the rest, taking control of the shuttle. The shuttle soon drops out of communication, rabbits away to FTL, and the Blue Suns commander watches his future fly away at FTL velocity. The comic concludes by saying that no one knows who took the Conduit, or where it ultimately ended up.
The ending of the comic is potent but ambiguous. Who took the Conduit? For what? And what did the Turian mean by ‘his species’, when it was a multi-species back-stab of the Blue Suns that stole it away?
These are just the first hints at what is to come. (Spoiler: Cerberus.)
===
The Pre-Invasion Setting
In the brief prologue we have, the presence of Cerberus is open from the start: Cerberus has been cashing in on their post-Collector popularity, as well as the political backswing that has occurred among the more nativist Humans after Anderson’s actions in Retribution were subsequently followed by most everyone finally accepting the Collector Base evidence as proof of the Reapers. Between a strong PR campaign tying themselves to being the first in the fight against the Collectors and Reapers, and the nativist backlash Anderson sparked by attacking them despite knowing their opposition to the Reapers, Cerberus is reveling in a wave of undeniable popularity support that the Council governments hate but can’t ignore. It doesn’t help that Cerberus is loudest in support for Commander Shepard after Arrival, emphasizing their ties with the First Human Spectre and Hero of the Citadel for legitimacy by association.
Resting both on their recent achievements and their ‘capital’ of Omega in the safety of the Terminus Systems, Cerberus has bounced back from Retribution and achieved a public presence like never before. Between offering pro-Human services in the Terminus from Omega, launching an open secret investment/preparation campaign across the colonies, and doing more to disrupt anti-Human piracy from within the Terminus than the Alliance has managed in years, Cerberus has made an appealing case for itself as a Human advocacy group that more and more accept. Gifts to colonies like small-arms fabricators, technical advice and intelligence sharing, and Cerberus-oriented investments in preparing for the Reapers are too useful to deny… even though they are also accompanied by further infiltration and recruiting efforts by Cerberus.
It’s not like Cerberus evils have disappeared, mind you: there are still assassinations, implicit racism, and evil science. Omega is also not terribly far from canon, except that Humans are treated as first-class citizens in what is otherwise an effective police state station. It’s also still preaching the need for Human self-reliance that borders on xenophobia. But what’s important is that it’s making a strong, strong PR push that it is a legitimate pro-Human group that is for the greater good of Humanity. This is particularly pushed by Cerberus’s undeclared-but-public-secret Ambassador Cerberus, the Petrosky of Cerberus Public Relations if you will.
The tone and style of this push would be visible in pre-release info, codexes, and other medium. In enemy forces profiles, for example, Cerberus Troopers would be noted as being largely composed of volunteers, and that Cerberus conditioning is as notable in how it secures the loyalty of its forces as it is in boosting their abilities. Cerberus Daily News would have a build-up story of Cerberus propaganda drives and defense-related investments in the colonies. Etc.
===
Tutorial: Earth
Cerberus has a modest presence but minor role in the revamped Tutorial. While it starts with the kid with the fighter toy now having Cerberus colors, the tone of the Alliance-Cerberus relationship is really set by Anderson: Cerberus representatives (possibly Jacob or Miranda) were sharing data with the Defense Committee just before Shepard was called, a fact Anderson dislikes but has no choice but to expect. While Anderson has infinite support for Shepard in particular, it’s pretty clear from him and Vega that Shepard is being kept under house arrest as much to distance him from Cerberus as anything Shepard actually did. Anderson more or less establishes that Cerberus has been using Shepard’s name and the Collectors to cover up their true nature, but that they’re doing too many useful things to reject outright.
Shepard goes to the committee, yada yada. The Committee thinks that, thanks to preparations and tech gifts from Cerberus and the Collector Base (debris), the Alliance and galaxy as a whole have a chance to fight off the Reapers: their raising this idea of conventional victory is intended to delegitimize it as half a minute later the Reapers are landing, and the Alliance is clearly getting its butt handed to them. While the resistance is a good deal stiffer if you Kept the Base than if not (the Alliance dreadnaught/cruiser being able to destroy the Reaper with a particle beam, rather than blow off a leg with its canon), Earth is still falling. Anderson and Shepard flee, and talk, and vow to get the Council’s help.
The first direct presence of Cerberus comes at the wounded soldiers/bridge scene: after Shepard would advance over the bridge more Cannibals come out, making the bridge too dangerous to pass again. They are promptly blown away when a Trooper jet-boots down near Shepard and tosses a grenade over the gap. The Trooper identifies itself as Cerberus, here to defend Humanity, and is told by Anderson (who clearly doesn’t trust it) to stay behind and look after the pilots. The trooper obeys, and gives an unsteady Alliance pilot a hand up and talks about falling back to a rendezvous point. If you stay around you might hear the pilot ask how Cerberus knows the Alliance rendezvous point, but the Trooper claims it doesn’t matter.
So goes our benign first impression of Cerberus: a positive one, with Cerberus appearing to come to the rescue. Anderson’s suspicion is present, though, and as they cross the bridge Anderson wonders how many other Cerberus troops are hidden on Earth… and what they’re playing for, since a static defense won’t work. Cerberus can’t hope to keep the planet from falling, but it wouldn’t waste the troops without something to gain from it.
Shepard and Anderson go to the radio, the Normandy comes as the cavalry, and things pretty much go as canon. We might see a few Cerberus troopers helping the Alliance provide covering fire as the shuttles evacuate civilians, but otherwise it’s clear that Earth is falling, Cerberus or no. Anderson stays behind to lead the fight, and figure out what Cerberus intends to do on Earth, as Alliance and Cerberus Kodiak shuttles fly by.
Cue sad music as Earth is fled, left to fall to the Reapers. Passing Mars, though, a call comes in from Hackett…
===
Priority: Mars
The Mars Archive is a war zone, as a Reaper detachment of Harvesters and troops were dropped to take out the archives as the rest of the Reaper forces take Earth. Alliance forces, never terribly large at the start, were mauled… and gratefully accepted the unexpected offer of Cerberus help.
Big mistake, as no sooner were they inside than the Cerberus troops shot their way into the Archive. Mars remains the first place we fight Cerberus, after an initial, external skirmish with the last Reaper forces.
Cerberus antagonism isn’t clear until Liara’s entrance, as the bodies outside are blamed on Reaper troops, though the execution-shots are a sign that all is not right. With Liara’s near-death entry, though, it becomes clear that Cerberus isn’t interested in protecting the base residents as much as it is interesting in seizing the archives for itself. With Liara claiming to know about the Crucible, the race is on.
No major changes are necessary: the reveal of husk-like technology raises questions about the Cerberus forces on Earth, the Virmire Survivor is still suspicious about Shepard’s past ties, and there might be a few more Alliance survivors left alive to recount the betrayal of Cerberus. Otherwise it’s a fight against a determined, merciless defender to the Archive. Things only really change once we get to talk to The Illusive Man.
TIM greets us by revealing that we’re already too late because Cerberus has already finished deleting all the data. Claiming that the betrayal of the Alliance was a necessity because the Alliance wouldn’t have destroyed the Archives, TIM argues that a Reaper capture would have been a disaster had the Reapers determined what was in. Liara is able to only salvage just enough data to show that the Crucible exists… while TIM claims to have all of it. TIM begins to propose a partnership between Cerberus and the Alliance to build the device, a prospect the player can either initially reject (due to the most recent betrayal) or approve of (‘if it really is true, you might be right’), but the discovery of the EDI-bot still in the achives interrupts the discussion and leads to the chase, with the prospect of being able to steal the data out of the robot’s head and not have to strike a devil’s bargain.
Cue the chase, and cue the same general outcome… though TIM orders EDI-bot to not kill the VS. EDI-bot still gets shot, though and by the time Shepard reaches the Citadel, the unfortunate truth is found: they have no plans for the Crucible. Cerberus alone retains them, and that is a Bad Thing.
===
Citadel: The Devil Dog’s Bargain
When Shepard reaches the Citadel, there’s a party waiting for him: Udina wants Shepard, now, and the Council has a very unique applicant: Cerberus, offering a trade for the Crucible blueprints.
It isn’t the Illusive Man himself in the chamber, though he has a hologram projector to participate. The ball holder is the Cerberus Ambassador, who provides a devil’s advocate position throughout the discussion, allowing Cerberus to raise points or counter arguments that the Illusive Man personally doesn’t want to get bogged down in.
Ambassador Cerberus is a cool and clearly intelligent human said to have been a former Human diplomat who, for various reasons, defected to Cerberus. Ambassador Cerberus introduces the idea of the Crucible directly: a Prothean super-weapon of immense power that could transmute e-zero into a worthless lump. This is a ground-breaking claim, contrary to current understandings of Mass Effect physics, the Illusive Man claims that Cerberus has already either established a theoretical understanding of this (if the Base was destroyed), or already proven the concept on a micro-scale (if the Base was kept). If the concept were scaled up, even Reapers would be vulnerable to having their cores destroyed. Cerberus is willing to trade the Crucible plans in exchange for a Grand Alliance.
The Council is more than a little skeptical of this white elephant project: the proposed resources are massive, and they haven’t had time to have their own scientists review or decipher the data. Cerberus is also proposing that all these resources be given to Humanity, which is a massive resource transfer when everyone is concerned with protecting themselves. Still, at this point they don’t have to contribute if they don’t want to, which means it’s a Human problem and not theirs.
The other half of Cerberus’s proposal is far more appealing, though: Cerberus proposes an alliance, in which Cerberus would share information, technology, and commit its resources to the galactic defense. The allure of free mass effect advances derived from the Collector Base (regardless of status), more forces, and common cause is appealing. The Council Races, too busy to want needless fighting with Cerberus is it can be avoided, would be very interested if it weren’t for one thing Cerberus is asking for in return:
Spectre-status for The Illusive Man.
The implications of Spectre status (elaborated via dialogue options) are massive: if the Illusive Man is sanctioned by the Council, the galactic community would effectively not only be legalizing the number one terrorist organization in the galaxy and pardoning all past actions, but legalizing any future abuses as well. Spectre status extends to everyone under a Spectre’s authority, a fact that has worked to Shepard’s favor many times (as Ambassador Cerberus will challenge if you did Garrus’s loyalty mission in ME2) but which would also apply to pretty much everything Cerberus would do and has done in the past. The Illusive Man is also openly admitting that he would use the power to prioritize pro-Human interests: while Ambassador Cerberus will note that plenty of Spectres have put their species first and foremost, most notably Saren, the prospect of Cerberus simply abusing Spectre status with impunity is a tough sell: Spectre status is an easily privilege to abuse, and Cerberus is an abuse-prone organization.
Ultimately, it’s a deal that will be made. Shepard can be grudging for the need for the Crucible or openly supportive, but once Ambassador Cerberus/TIM point out that they would only be keeping it as long as they prove that Cerberus is worth the trouble, and thus unlikely to abuse it too much, the Council relents. The Council gives off a tone that implies that with Cerberus on board it will be up to them to assist the Alliance with the Crucible while the Council races prioritize their own, but Cerberus and the Alliance are effectively wedded.
And just in time, too, because no sooner has TIM closed his hologram and Ambassador Cerberus, the official public face of Cerberus, faces some uneasy stares than Bailly interrupts the Council session to report that Human refugees are flooding the Citadel… through the Conduit.
To which Ambassador Cerberus says they are right on time, clearly expecting this.
As Shepard and the Council overlook the Praesidium from the Council Tower, the Conduit is shown to be flashing, flashing, flashing. Vehicles, Kodiaks painted in Cerberus colors, are flying out of the Conduit. With media-personalities like Al-Jilani watching with cameras rolling, the first shuttles land, doors opening. Cerberus troopers are the first out, and turn to help out clearly dazed and desperate refugees who are led to clearly unprepared C-SEC officers who have been pointing loaded weapons at the new arrivals.
As Shepard, Udina, and the Council turn towards a smug Ambassador Cerberus, he claims that unlike the Alliance which planned to flee Earth, Cerberus planned to stay. Cerberus has hidden the Conduit on Earth, and is using it to evacuate civilians to safety, while Cerberus fights on. The Council is taken aback, afraid that the Reapers will soon follow, but Udina and Hackett realize the real effect: Cerberus is making Earth a high-priority world for the entire galaxy, and using both the PR of refugees on the Citadel and the risk of the Reapers recovering the Conduit to pressure the Council to help Earth. The longer the Council refuses to help, the greater the risk: the sooner they do, the better for Humanity.
Ambassador Cerberus, waving aside fears that the Reapers will find the Conduit, leaves to implement Cerberus’s first Spectre privilege: turning a portion of the Citadel docks into a holding area/refugee area for the incoming Human refugees… and others species too, as an after-thought.
===
With Cerberus setting itself up as a legitimate actor, and having stolen a march on the galactic front pages, it’s a relief to the remaining Alliance leadership to be able to take a breath, regroup, and figure out a way forward. With the loss of Acturius and Anderson on Earth, the leading figures of Humanity are now Hackett and Udina, with Shepard being a fly on the wall as the two talk shop.
Both Hackett and Udina agree that the Crucible is ultimately going to be the real war-winner for Humanity. While Collector technology will help with the resistance and drive up Reaper casualties, the fall of Earth so quickly leaves Humanity in a bad position. Even if, if, the Reapers could be beaten conventionally (something Hacket rejects), it would take so long that Earth would be long-dead by then. Only the Crucible could conceivably even the playing field enough to beat the Reapers. It just is going to cost a lot, possibly more than the Alliance can provide. So in that sense, Cerberus help is great… but neither Hackett or Udina believe relying on Cerberus is a good thing.
Here is where the Turian Councilor comes in. Equally suspicious of Cerberus and their offers, but also needing a favor, he makes the offer of a strengthened Turian-Human alliance in exchange for the rescue of the Primarch. Turian fleets to help retake Earth, and the resources of an empire and all its vassals to support the Crucible, if the Alliance could help keep Palaven from falling as Earth did.
It appears a pretty win-win offer regardless of your take on Cerberus, and one Hackett is fully behind. With the Alliance navy intact but lacking a home, and the Turians the best force to help maintain/supply them, the alliance is a no-brainer means to bolster resistance against the Reapers that would also help guard against Cerberus influence. Go forth, young Shepard, to Palaven.
Posted at 01:01 PM on 2013-02-10
===
Palaven happens.
Resistance to the Reapers can be stressed as meaningful (not invincible, just really, really tough), but Reapers numbers are likewise emphasized. For every Reaper destroyed, there’s another two. A billion years of cycles to prepare their numbers, and more flying in from Dark Space each day.
The Batarians are still around, we learn from discussion: the first Reaper invasion really was at Earth, the knock-out punch of the war that started a broad offensive. The Turians, better prepared, were just sent sprawling and trying not to lose, hence why the Krogan and Alliance could make a decisive difference in the rate of defeat.
Victus is recruited, and part of his characterization is that he’s an old-hand at fighting Cerberus, having even sent Oleg Petrovsky into retreat. A certified member of the anti-Cerberus faction, check.
Still makes his demand for the Krogan support, though: the Alliance can provide the fleets to support Palaven, but not the armies. But hey, Krogan support is always a good thing… right?
===
The Early Game Context/Eden Prime
While this re-cast focuses on Cerberus most of all, that’s because Cerberus’s role is the primary difference between this and canon. This TL;DR is focusing on the differences, no similarities.
Regardless, Cerberus has a signature on a lot of different things now, which will be reflected in the early setting. In the early game especially, Cerberus is playing a deliberate PR-strategy to integrate themselves into polite society. This includes a lot of helpful, noble things that really shouldn’t be denied, but naturally help obscure the occasional ulterior motive and dirty secret. Some things Cerberus does really are pro-Human for pro-Human’s sake, such as Cerberus medics in the Hospital for Human patients or the entire refugee camp setup, something primarily focused on helping refugees from the Conduit but is also helping aliens. Cerberus-idealists are out in force, and are (wisely) presented as the public face of Cerberus: not necessarily anti-alien, and more or less volunteers and likable.
While the charm offensive is strong early-game trend, it’s not all sunshine. Sometimes help is help, and sometimes it has an ulterior motive: when Cerberus offers to help your computer system, don’t be surprised when you see spyware added as well. There’s also the early introduction of Sanctuary as well: a Cerberus-sponsred secret refuge program in which Human refugees are given shelter in Cerberus-prepared facilities, hidden across the galaxy so that they can wait out the Reaper War. Of course, there’s more to it than that, but right now the flow of the Conduit-fueled refugee camp is frequently those Earth refugees either join the war effort and the Alliance, joins Cerberus in particular, or go to Sanctuary. Win-win-win, with good PR and Human Interests going hand in hand.
The best example of ‘kind word and a gun’ would be the re-interpretation of From the Ashes, and Eden Prime. In canon, Cerberus mercilessly attacked, occupied, and oppressed the defensless colony merely to gain access to Prothean ruins.
A Cerberus that comes in offering to defend and evacuate the colony, even as the Alliance has abandoned it to the Reapers, would be invited in with open arms. And if Cerberus is particularly strict about not letting any Alliance personnel near the dig sites… well, that’s the Alliance’s problem, not the Colony’s. That’s the dynamic we find in From the Ashes, when Shepard is tasked to investigate why Cerberus is interested in Eden Prime, enough to invest significant resources to garrison and evacuate such a large colony: Cerberus is welcomed by the colony, but viewed with suspicion by the Alliance.
Part of that suspicion is because everyone that the Alliance has sent to investigate has turned up dead: while Cerberus is keeping it hushed up, and the Alliance has no interest in publicizing the frictions either, Shepard is sent in to put a boot in the door and find out what’s happening, and not let anyone stop him. Which we do by violence, leading to a conclusion in which the Reapers are finally turning their attention towards Eden Prime.
Eden Prime shows the ‘typical’ Cerberus model of interaction with the human colonies: offering resources to colonial governments to pursue Cerberus-suggested options (evacuate the colonists, defenses, etc), providing Cerberus troops to help maintain order and prepare for a protracted war/insurgency against Reaper invasion, and encouraging voluntary recruiting and propaganda drives to build up human support. Cerberus troopers, always autonomous even under their (unknown) indoctrination, are directed to maintain contact with their former lives and present a facade of normality: a Trooper from Eden Prime goes on a tour, shows off how cool and strong he/she has become, and offers the typical promise of Cerberus recruitment: ‘with implants like Shepard’s, you can fight like Shepard.’
The big difference in the narrative of From the Ashes is the impending threat of Reaper invasion: given Eden Prime’s size and proximity to Earth, everyone knows the Reapers will eventually come to occupy it, and whether Cerberus will stand their ground is a real question. As Shepard fights through Cerberus forces at the dig site, storm clouds gather and the Reapers begin to approach, quickly becoming a race against time to acquire the Prothean before the Reapers land.
The local Face of Cerberus, likely a Centurian repeatedly referenced as the liason with the colony and dealt with over radio/vidcom before, is present at the end to present a Moral Choice: Cerberus had been planning to abandon Eden Prime after the Reaper Invasion in order to conserve resources, a fact Shepard can learn through data logs, but if Shepard hands over Javik the Centurian vows to stay and fight for the Colony, thus giving more chances for refugees to flee and tying down more Reaper forces.
The moral choice, between keeping a squadmate and seeing the colony abandoned to the Reaper, or giving up the Prothean to Cerberus and having Cerberus stand by and defend the colony, also has a third-way option: if you found all the data logs proving that Cerberus was only using Eden Prime as a propaganda piece, intending to abandon it, Liara can user her Shadow Broker contacts to blackmail Cerberus into staying behind even if you do take Javik. Best of both worlds, providing more assets and the companion.
Regardless of what you do, the post-DLC news sees Cerberus try to spin it to their advantage: either Cerberus heroically fights a doomed battle to defend Humanity, or else Cerberus was sabotaged by Alliance forces and regretfully forced to abandon the colony.
As for Javik himself, what the Alliance hoped and Cerberus feared he could do (shed more light on the Crucible) turns out to be wrong. Javik really follows whoever you sent him to: if you don’t recruit him he turns up in the news as a pro-Cerberus spokesman (approving of their no-matter-the-costs attitude), and ultimately turns up as a boss fight addition later on if you didn’t recruit him.
===
Genophage Arc
===
Back to the A Plot, Cerberus actually keeps much of the same role as in canon: it’s really the Salarians who change, as we see the evolution of the Cerberus-Alliance Alliance turn into a question of inter-species alliances.
The Alliance, personified by Hackett, Udina, and Anderson (who, on Earth, is reporting on his attempts to find the Conduit while fighting the war with Cerberus), is suspicious of Cerberus. They share that suspicion with the Turians, for reasons to come clear. The next anti-Cerberus group is… the Krogan, who (rightly) believe that Cerberus fears them as much as the Salarians do.
And it’s the Salarians who become the first of the major powers to have a common interest with Cerberus: less about being pro-Human, and more about being anti-genophage, when their nominal allies bull-rush her into making what she views as the biggest mistake of a millennia, the Dalatrass reaches out to Cerberus to make a deal… and thus the question of how Cerberus knows where to be and why is eventually answered.
The Cerberus attack on Surkesh is the first crisis of the pan-Human alliance, and the first time Cerberus pulls the Spectre-card to justify not being held to account. In an excellent opportunity for a conversation with TIM, or at least Ambassador Cerberus, as Cerberus lays out it’s governing philosophy for the Reaper War: it does not intend to replace one grave threat to Humanity with another, and it considers a cured Krogan species to be an equally grave threat to the galaxy, and Humanity.
The Alliance and Krogan are furious, but initial demands to have Cerberus’s Spectre status revoked are surprisingly rejected by all three members of the Council, even the Turians. Disclaiming the ability to punish Spectres acting within a standing Council mandate, and counseling Shepard that Cerberus is still supplying resources and troops to the Alliance’s own Crucible efforts, the Council more or less says they won’t interfere with this ‘internal Human dispute.’ The Alliance-Cerberus proxy war officially begins, allies on one planet and enemies on the next, with the line between enemy and ally increasingly blurred.
Turning to the Turian Primarch, with Wrex/Wreave and Shepard demanding why the Turian Councilor would tolerate Cerberus actions, Primarch Victus refuses to explain… but does suggest Shepard take a look at the crashed Turian cruiser on Tuchanka. Which starts the Turian Bomb Plot, which actually explains this dynamic.
It turns out that there is something worse than Cerberus using a planet-cracking bomb to devastate the Krogan and start a Turian-Krogan War, and that is using the threat of using a planet-cracking bomb to blackmail the Turian Hierarchy. As long as Cerberus holds this planet-******, the Hierarchy can’t openly move against them: this is why the Turian Councilor accepts Cerberus’s role, despite barely-constrained animosity. Primarch Victus sent the Cruiser and his son in a covert attempt to retake the bomb, but the Reapers used the Ground Canon (change of enemy there) to shoot down the Cruiser and now the effort is stalled.
The Turian Bomb Plot stays mostly the same from there on, but it does introduce a Moral Choice at the end: whether to actually take the bomb from Cerberus, or to leave it with them. Though Cerberus remains largely antagonistic, the end-point decision comes when Ambassador Cerberus (or an equivalent Cerberus figure), via hologram, spells out what Cerberus and Humanity is getting from the blackmail: in addition to political tolerance of the Cerberus-Alliance alliance, by keeping the bomb active and secret Cerberus has compelled the Turian Hierarchy to send forces to defend Human colonies that would otherwise have been defenseless and reaped. Shepard is presented with the choice to allow this blackmail to continue (knowing you’ll have Turian forces out of compulsion, but keeping Human colonies safe), or to stop it (hopefully earning Turian forces out of gratitude and allowing the Hierarchy to be anti-Cerberus, at the cost of Human colonies being destroyed).
Plus, some personal guilt at Primarch Victus’s anger at your possible betrayal, and sorrow for his son. Your Shepard’s relationship with the Turians is going to be determined by this, and even Garrus is a little cross. (Maybe.)
Moving back to the A-plot, the Cerberus anti-cure in-fighting gets amped up when Cerberus takes a role in the Tuchanka mission: now aiming to prevent the genophage from being cured at any cost, even at the cost of the Reaper successfully poisoning the atmosphere, Cerberus is involved in blunting and trying to stop the Krogan convoy: rather than a crashing Turian fighter it would be a Cerberus bombing run while dog-fights occur overhead, and by mission or admission we would learn that Cerberus is able to act so easily because the Dalatrass and the STG is assisting them. The Dalatrass offer to Shepard is coached in terms that she will honor her bargain with Cerberus, of resources for the Crucible and fleets for Earth, if the genophage is stopped or sabotaged. But, she adds, she would much rather be indebted to the Alliance than rely on Cerberus as the only trustworthy partner in Humanity, a foreshadowing of an Important Consequence.
Ideally I’d also like someone, not necessarily Cerberus, to counter Wrex/Eve optimism of Krogan benevolence. Ambassador Cerberus on the Citadel can make a good Devil’s Advocate if you approach him before the mission, challenging the idea that Wrex’s reforms will hold or whether the Krogan can restrain their dissidents. But that would be out of mission, if you went to his office in the Embassies.
The Genophage Arc is pretty awesome as is, and so there’s not much need to change the ending setup of outcomes beyond context: the Salarians are the first species in which turning them pro-Cerberus is a serious possibility. While that mechanic will be discussed later, the Genophage Arc can not only be cast in terms of Krogan/Salarian, but also in terms of whether the Salarians are pro-Alliance or pro-Cerberus, with different flavor outcomes along the lines of who the STG is cooperating with more: new ties with old foes, or enhanced cooperation with the Alliance?
Curing the Genophage also has a separate conditional associated with it: triggering the Turian Bomb. If the genophage is to be cured and the Krogan turned into a galactic threat, Cerberus is going to do its best to mitigate the threat to Humanity as much and as soon as possible. Not only does the bomb wipe out a good number of the adult Krogan, setting back their expansion by some time, but by instigating a Turian-Krogan War (eventually) it commits the Turians to devoting their post-war efforts into containing the problem. As the final cherry on top, Cerberus can anticipate that even if, if, the Krogan learned of Cerberus’s own involvement, they would be far more focused on the Turians and would give Humanity as a whole a pass (thanks to Shepard’s intervention in curing the genophage) and limit their grudge to Cerberus itself. So… lose-lose-win, I suppose.
This is one of those wicked-seeming consequences that is actually pretty-easy to avoid: just do the bomb before Tuchanka and don’t leave it with Cerberus. It’s more of a flavor/completionist mechanic than a major plot-changer, meant to demonstrate the still-real dark side of Cerberus when it doesn’t get its way… and to be honest, people who leave it with Cerberus are probably going to sabotage the cure as well.
Regardless of outcome, the Genophage Arc closes by at least the temporary Krogan-Turian Alliance, the solidifying of the Turian-Alliance Alliance, and a calming of the Cerberus-Alliance infighting as the primary driver of infighting, the genophage, has been irreversibly resolved. The genophage arc itself has three effective endstates: Genophage Sabotaged, Genophaged Cured and Bomb Detonated, or Genophage Cured and Bomb Not Detonated.
With the infighting dying down for the moment, progress can proceed on the Crucible and on a counter-offensive to retake Earth. More is needed, though: more troops to drive the Reapers off of Earth, and more workers and scientists to continue building it. Not needing the Citadel Coup development, two possibilities are raised: reaching out for various assets/assistance to bolster the mission (all of those major side-missions) , or stopping the new flow of Heretic Geth that are fighting for the Reapers across the galaxy.
This is effectively the Middle Game, at which the player can fool around with all those side quests in the context of building up the war effort rather than dilly-dallying at the end of days. Story-wise Rannoch is the next driver, so moving there…
===
Rannoch Arc
What’s there to talk about, honestly? The canon game had a pretty sound basis of carry-over import consequences, and the missions themselves were appropriate and sensible for the setting. I could say that the Geth deserve a bit harder scrutiny for their past, and taken to task for their own needed compromises for peace, but overall it’s a pretty good scenario that doesn’t require much in the way of change.
I suppose the key three differences I would make come into the resolution: the context of Legion’s sacrifice, the fate of the Geth, and the resolutions that don’t require genocide to be one-sided and tragic.
For the first… I thought it was really stupid that Legion died regardless of decision. It was forced, it was arguably unnecessary, and above all it felt incredibly fake: Geth are by lore copy-paste programs, and there not being any copy of Legion to re-load ignores one of the fundamental traits of the Geth.
So as much as I love a good Necessary Sacrifice, Legion should stay. If anything, Legion should be the potential permanent companion: let Tali stay with her people, organizing them, and be a romance on the Citadel sort of NPC.
Legion/Geth VI being a companion depends on being around to do so, and this leads me to my second change: change Geth’s flash-bang to some sort of hacking-control that finally broke the Geth’s resistance to hacking. Still foiled by the Reaper Code, this new weapon fulfills the idea of Xen’s ambitions of returning the Geth back into the tools they once were. It also has the effect that no matter what the outcome, the Geth military strength remains available: either because they are free, or because they are slaves. This works with the greater narrative’s idea that the Reapers, while overwhelming, can be slowed with conventional forces, and the Geth provide a big part of that.
So, being intact no matter what, the Legion shell could be a good default companion character, all the more with differing narrative impacts depending on whether Legion is a shackled AI/VI, or free-willed. Writing heavy, sure, but hey. This is a head-canon scenario in the first place.
But for the last, I think the ending of the arc would have been better if there had been no genocide no matter the choice: not to say there shouldn’t be a faction-decision or unequal outcomes, but rather that outcomes emphasizing that the factions aren’t ready to co-exist as equals, that they learned the wrong lessons, strikes me as a bit more tragic.
For the Quarians, it’s obvious: by following through with Xen’s plan, they never truly accept that their creations became alive. More interested in dominating their creations than understanding them, the Geth are controlled, shackled, and once again the obedient tools they once were. In gratitude/exchange for Shepard’s help, the Quarians join the war with their new army.
For the Geth, it’s less so: more that the Geth still don’t understand their creators, and still haven’t learned to be, well, equal members of society. In this case, Legion’s upload of the Reaper Code will switch the tables: the Geth are now able to take control of the Quarians’ machines, uploading themselves across the Migrant Fleet, and the Quarians are now prisoners of the Geth. The Geth decline genocide, having learned that much… but their efforts to ‘understand’ their Creators take a disturbing turn for the Quarians, as they lose all freedom and all chance for independence on their own homeworld. The Geth are now the dominant aspect of Quarian life, ‘for their own good’, but still haven’t grasped that their own manner of actions is what sparks fear.
For peace, it’s co-existence without domination. Maybe it’s MAD, or maybe it’s because neither can take the other, but the Geth leave the planet to the Quarians, and the Quarians leave the Geth their Dyson Sphere. The Dyson Sphere itself might be the best means of peace: the idea that if preserved (choice-dependent), the Geth could upload themselves into an entity too smart to be controlled by Xen’s weapon. Regardless, uneasy peace that can lead way to co-existence, while both forces submit ships and scientists to the effort. Possibly an opportunity-cost of this would be that this ‘best’ outcome has the fewest immediate rewards/war assets.
In the end, Rannoch ends with the Geth and Quarian fleets unified and offered to the War Effort.
===
N7 Missions
Most of these are side missions that included Cerberus as an enemy in the main game, but in which Cerberus plays a more... well, a role that you can actually side with, and one that collectively plays up the infighting/common cause between Cerberus and the Alliance as they fight for the soul of humanity.
While fighting Cerberus is still possible, or even expected, in these revamped missions, it’s definitely intended to take the tone of a shadow war hidden from the public. Hacket and Petrovsky will share command and influence in the protection of a colony during the day, while sending strike teams against eachother at night. Most of these take place in the context of the N7 missions, and the N7 missions themselves can be thought of as a chain.
The key, nebulous idea when dealing with Cerberus here is the Legitimacy Conflict: between Cerberus and the Alliance, who has the greater claim to being the legitimate guardian of Humanity?
Put in terms of a cumulative point system, one that can also incorporate prior choices by Shepard, the group with more points is generally seen as the more legitimate party. It’s not quite synonymous with popularity, but ultimately it will have end-game consequences.
---
N7: Cerberus Recruiting
A re-make of the N7: Cerberus Abductions missions, and the first N7 mission. Though Shepard learned that Cerberus soldiers use husk-like implants on Mars, Cerberus is going public with the existence of the implants in order to bolster its recruiting drive, something it can now do openly thanks to the Spectre deal.
Cerberus is setting up an open recruiting presence on Benning, a major Alliance colony that the Alliance has only a token presence on. Shepard is sent ‘undercover’ (read: in civilian clothes) in order to see what it’s all about, and to try and crack into the Cerberus data base in order to figure out where volunteers go once they sign the contract and are taken away to Cerberus’s secret training camps.
This begins as a no-combat mission, with Shepard going through Firebase Ghost which is a still-civilian area. Through the various buildings you see civilians watching various Cerberus presentations, or listening to recruiters/videos. You’d have Cerberus troopers showing off their skills, a few ‘home town recruits’ come back, and a general propaganda fest along with an admin area (the back building of the courtyard) in which Cerberus sign-in their volunteers.
Shepard hides in the crowds, and the background, with a basic stealth-mechanic. Shepard is tasked with avoiding notice while getting to a few locations and dropping off spy devices: if Shepard is seen, Shepard is put on the ‘divergence’ path, which is to say that Shepard is forced to openly go to the Main Event, but without the chance to drop spyware.
The Main Event, after Shepard drops the devices or is seen, is the explanation of the implants that takes place before a crowd in the alley. Cerberus presents its implants as the key to Human survival: that these implants can make any run-of-the-mill civilian capable of fighting with the best of the Alliance in a matter of days. Listing off a list of ‘upgrades’ the implants allow, an unmasked Cerberus trooper with a sympathetic personality works to assure the crowd that despite the looks, they’re still human. This, they explain, allows them to defend human colonies that the Alliance would abandon, like Benning itself. When some people are still suspicious and doubtful, noting they look like Reaper tech, the Spokesman pulls the trump card: these are perfectly safe implants, because these are the same sort of implants they put in the Great Commander Shepard when Shepard worked with them!
Don’t you want to be more like the Commander?
If the Commander were still hidden, this presents the player with a chance to speak up (Paragon), to stay quiet and hidden (Renegade), or a P/R check to make a speech going ‘bull****.’ Speaking up just reveals your presence in a non-convincing argument, but the P/R makes an inspirational, if not compelling, case that it’s not implants that make the heroes of Humanity, and that anyone really wanting to serve their species should join the Alliance.
Regardless, the recruiting event quickly becomes ruined when gunfire breaks out: a Reaper force has somehow snuck into the city, and is beginning to attack. The Cerberus troops react with clear and vocal orders to protect the crowd, and Shepard is left with a conditional choice: if Shepard was caught/exposed himself, Shepard will end up fighting the Reapers with Cerberus and protecting the civilians, but loses the chance to hack the Cerberus mainframe. If Shepard was still hidden, Shepard can leave Cerberus to handle the Reapers while taking advantage of the chaos to hack the computer as Hackett instructed. After the attack is over, Cerberus initiates a lock-down and Shepard has to leave.
The mission has three effective end-states: Shepard exposed but no persuasion, Shepard exposed but persuasive, and Shepard unexposed. Let’s call them A, B, and C.
In A, the outcome is that Cerberus gains legitimacy for heroically defending the civilians, spurring more recruitment and Cerberus-related War Assets. Between the Alliance’s lack-luster showing and Hackett having to waste more resources on more penetration attempts, the Alliance loses assets and/or 1 legitimacy.
In B, Shepard’s commanding presence, inspirational speech, and role in repelling the attack steals Cerberus’s thunder and drives Alliance recruiting instead. Alliance legitimacy greatly gained (+2), more Alliance assets, and fewer Cerberus assets.
In C, Cerberus gains legitimacy for being the on-the-spot defenders, but loses war assets because a number of their recruits die. The Alliance, successfully penetrating the server and not having to try again, saves war assets.
---
N7: Cerberus Lab
The follow-on from Cerberus Recruiting, a look at the more implementation-level aspects of the Cerberus troopers. The Alliance’s ultimate success at penetrating Cerberus recruiting stations leads them to this ‘training camp’, which is actually a Cerberus Lab.
Firebase Glacier is the production-phase of Cerberus troopers, where civilians are given implants and equipment. It doesn’t have the horror of Sanctuary, but it’s definitely meant to shade in the personality changes of indoctrination effects. As Shepard fights his/her way through the lab on section at a time, with doors initially closed, data pads and such offer a chance to see the changes.
First area are the docks, in which Shepard has to secure the LZ from the Cerberus guards. There should be a slight change to allow a clear disembarkment process, such as a new Cerberus recruit might follow. A data pad comments on the new faces of the volunteers, and suggests what a change they’ll be going through.
Second area is the first half of the lab, and particularly the operating table. It’s a respectful operation, and a scientist log talks about how different people respond to varying levels with the implants: some do better, and some do worse. Due to the number of volunteers, the lab suggests either stricter screening or opening up more processing labs.
Third half of the upstairs lab, the area with computer consoles, should clearly be a waiting area for people preparing for treatment: benches, a soda machine, etc. This might be a good place for a new volunteer to talk about how all the unmasked troopers he’s seen are total stoic badasses when they aren’t trying to be nice, and how he doesn’t intend to become like that.
Fourth is the down-stairs area, which is a techie-area where they evaluate how the implants are adjusting to people. This is a good place for a lab techie to have an interview with the previous recruit, in which we can see how indoctrination is changing the personality to a Cerberus-desired viewpoint. Particularly important is a reminder that troopers take deliberate effort to be nice and pleasant to ‘civilians’, and that recruiting duty isn’t for everyone.
Fifth and final is the upstairs control room, which the end-mission ‘surprise’ is that the implants really are derived from Reaper tech, and are being used to teach/train the volunteers their skills and loyalty through indoctrination. Cerberus is finally discovered as using reaper-tech implant-indoctrination on their troops: it’s been incredibly effective in making combat-capable troops, and is also a safeguard to stopping Reaper-indoctrination attempts.
The Moral Choice of this discovery is to either reveal it to the public, making everyone aware of the brainwashing that occurs, or not and letting these practices continue for the greater good. Ideally this is something you can confront Ambassador Cerberus and Udina over, though both cynically suggest that most people won’t care and that volunteers will still sign up.
Exposing the truth certainly does a hit to Cerberus’s legitimacy, but this is also corresponded by a reduction in war assets due to fewer volunteers. The Alliance is better viewed, but there are fewer troops: a news report confirms that Cerberus recruiting continues despite a drop, but a Cerberus-Alliance deal to hand-over convicted criminals is blocked.
Keeping silent rewards you by not hurting you: higher war assets, though this also means higher Cerberus legitimacy. Cerberus recruitment continues, and Cerberus works out a deal with the Alliance to take custody of convicted prisoners and suspected indoctrination victims.
---
N7: Communication Hub
The communication arrays are property of Cerberus, and the Alliance suspects that the database has information on a variety of Cerberus projects… including the locations of their Sanctuary Project, an open-secret of secret colonies Cerberus has initiated as a place to hide human refugees. With a Reaper attack imminent, the Alliance has graciously offered assistance to help destroy that data… but Hackett has a scheme to steal it instead.
While you’re nominally fighting Reapers to help Cerberus, complete with background of other com stations also fighting Reapers across the wasteland, in actuality Shepard may be fighting both Reapers and Cerberus. As long as you actually destroy the data at each node, Cerberus will fight the Reapers instead of you. If you pick the button to hack it, however, both Cerberus and the Reapers will attack you. Across the battlefield on other stations, as well as on intercom chatter, there are chatter-reports of increasing Cerberus/Alliance ‘friendly fire’ incidents due to dust storms.
Besides being primarily a ways to allow the player to roleplay Alliance/Cerberus preferences, and to illustrate how tense the alliance can be, the outcome primarily has a legitimacy difference.
If you destroy the data then Cerberus keeps the colonies secret, and everyone credits Cerberus with them. There’s an implied coverup about a Sanctuary world going quiet from Reaper attacks, but Cerberus Ambassador publicly denies it and says that it was a deliberate blackout for security reasons.
If you steal the data, the Alliance steals headlines when it’s able to swoop in and save a Sanctuary that was uncovered by Reapers, and Cerberus ‘graciously’ invites them into the project as a co-guardian. Alliance legitimacy up.
---
N7: Fuel Reactor
Not a Cerberus-fighting mission, but a demonstration of the more positive side of the Cerberus-Alliance partnership. This is an Alliance fuel station that has fallen to Reaper infiltration, and Cerberus soldiers sent to help went dark. Because fuel is so vital, Shepard is sent to help out.
Along with the puzzle/exploration factor, a good part of this mission is discovering what had occurred. Some of the nobler aspects of Cerberus and the Troopers are illustrated here through recordings and/or testimony of survivors. Cerberus troopers fought the Reaper infiltrators, and a number of volunteers took certain death in the poisonous chemicles in order to stop a reactor overlord. Possibly also some corpses to suggest that some troops lured strong Reaper troops into the reactor, and then locked themselves inside to certain death. Possibly the toxins were deliberately released because it was realized they stopped husks from sabotaging the reactor.
Picking up on a discarded idea from the leaked script, a fun moral choice of the reactor would have been to possibly use the toxins as a separate War Asset. Choose between fuel or a new bioweapon that works on Husks.
---
N7: Fighter Base
Just for ****s and giggles, I’d make this a Geth attack on a fighter facility. The surviving defenders would be holed up in That Room.
More seriously, this N7 mission is a prime candidate for being a lead-in to the Dark Energy Plot (to be mentioned more later).
---
Ardat Yakshi Monastary
Simply because it doesn’t fit well anywhere else, a bit of a context change occurs in the set-up for this mission: Liara brings it up because she discovered contacts between the Asari military and Cerberus, which dispatched a significant strike force to the remote AY monastery. Following the trail to see what they were up to, we find signs of the war and plenty of casualties, from Cerberus to Reaper to Asari.
As we investigate, we come across recordings and evidence of a Cerberus massacre of the Ardat Yakshi, even before the Reapers arrived. As we investigate further, we discover that the Cerberus massacre was actually instigated at the request of the Asari: the Asari Government knows that Banshees are made from those with the AY gene, wasn’t going to defend such a remote location from the Reapers, but didn’t want them to take the Ardat Yakshi either. They made a deal with Cerberus, promising support (both political and military) for Humanity and an official cover-up if Cerberus would wipe out the monastery. If the Reapers hadn’t intervened, and if Samara/Morinth hadn’t be in place to interfere, Cerberus would have wiped out the monastery and no one would have ever known.
(Note: if Morinth/Samara survived ME2, there are more AY survivors. If not, Samara’s daughters are the last survivors.)
Samara’s role is a bit different, as is the role of the Code. Basically, while AY must be hunted down and brought to the Monastaries, while within the Monasteries they must be protected. Samara came to protect the AY, and her daughters, from all attackers. Morinth came to free her sisters, and the other AY, after disguising herself as a new enrollee.
Rather than the suicide, the Moral Choice comes down to whether to fulfill the Cerberus job and detonate the bomb, killing all the Banshees and AY (including Samara’s daughters) and gaining Asari support, or letting the surviving AY go. Letting them go free carries risks, though, due to Morinth and Samara’s intent: retribution on Asari High Command for trying to have the AY murdered. Morinth, already a serial killer, promises to teach her sisters/the survivors how to take retribution through the same. Samara, a Justicar, vows to take down the officers responsible, no matter how many soldiers they put in her way. Sparing the innocent, in other words, is accompanied by either letting a Justicar go rampant on the military leaders of the Asari, or letting Morinth make more AY like herself. Even if you don’t have them and only the Daughters or left, you still don’t get assets if you don’t trigger the bomb and leave them behind.
In terms of consequences, triggering the Cerberus bomb gets notable Asari War Assets… but also establishes a working understanding, and blackmail, between the Asari military and Cerberus. Sparing the survivors gives you few/no assets: Morinth gives you a modest net-positive since her retribution is precise, but Samara triggers a news story about wiping out a bunch of corrupt, ‘indoctrinated’, generals which and her war assets barely break even. The daughters alone give no assets.
Palaven happens.
Resistance to the Reapers can be stressed as meaningful (not invincible, just really, really tough), but Reapers numbers are likewise emphasized. For every Reaper destroyed, there’s another two. A billion years of cycles to prepare their numbers, and more flying in from Dark Space each day.
The Batarians are still around, we learn from discussion: the first Reaper invasion really was at Earth, the knock-out punch of the war that started a broad offensive. The Turians, better prepared, were just sent sprawling and trying not to lose, hence why the Krogan and Alliance could make a decisive difference in the rate of defeat.
Victus is recruited, and part of his characterization is that he’s an old-hand at fighting Cerberus, having even sent Oleg Petrovsky into retreat. A certified member of the anti-Cerberus faction, check.
Still makes his demand for the Krogan support, though: the Alliance can provide the fleets to support Palaven, but not the armies. But hey, Krogan support is always a good thing… right?
===
The Early Game Context/Eden Prime
While this re-cast focuses on Cerberus most of all, that’s because Cerberus’s role is the primary difference between this and canon. This TL;DR is focusing on the differences, no similarities.
Regardless, Cerberus has a signature on a lot of different things now, which will be reflected in the early setting. In the early game especially, Cerberus is playing a deliberate PR-strategy to integrate themselves into polite society. This includes a lot of helpful, noble things that really shouldn’t be denied, but naturally help obscure the occasional ulterior motive and dirty secret. Some things Cerberus does really are pro-Human for pro-Human’s sake, such as Cerberus medics in the Hospital for Human patients or the entire refugee camp setup, something primarily focused on helping refugees from the Conduit but is also helping aliens. Cerberus-idealists are out in force, and are (wisely) presented as the public face of Cerberus: not necessarily anti-alien, and more or less volunteers and likable.
While the charm offensive is strong early-game trend, it’s not all sunshine. Sometimes help is help, and sometimes it has an ulterior motive: when Cerberus offers to help your computer system, don’t be surprised when you see spyware added as well. There’s also the early introduction of Sanctuary as well: a Cerberus-sponsred secret refuge program in which Human refugees are given shelter in Cerberus-prepared facilities, hidden across the galaxy so that they can wait out the Reaper War. Of course, there’s more to it than that, but right now the flow of the Conduit-fueled refugee camp is frequently those Earth refugees either join the war effort and the Alliance, joins Cerberus in particular, or go to Sanctuary. Win-win-win, with good PR and Human Interests going hand in hand.
The best example of ‘kind word and a gun’ would be the re-interpretation of From the Ashes, and Eden Prime. In canon, Cerberus mercilessly attacked, occupied, and oppressed the defensless colony merely to gain access to Prothean ruins.
A Cerberus that comes in offering to defend and evacuate the colony, even as the Alliance has abandoned it to the Reapers, would be invited in with open arms. And if Cerberus is particularly strict about not letting any Alliance personnel near the dig sites… well, that’s the Alliance’s problem, not the Colony’s. That’s the dynamic we find in From the Ashes, when Shepard is tasked to investigate why Cerberus is interested in Eden Prime, enough to invest significant resources to garrison and evacuate such a large colony: Cerberus is welcomed by the colony, but viewed with suspicion by the Alliance.
Part of that suspicion is because everyone that the Alliance has sent to investigate has turned up dead: while Cerberus is keeping it hushed up, and the Alliance has no interest in publicizing the frictions either, Shepard is sent in to put a boot in the door and find out what’s happening, and not let anyone stop him. Which we do by violence, leading to a conclusion in which the Reapers are finally turning their attention towards Eden Prime.
Eden Prime shows the ‘typical’ Cerberus model of interaction with the human colonies: offering resources to colonial governments to pursue Cerberus-suggested options (evacuate the colonists, defenses, etc), providing Cerberus troops to help maintain order and prepare for a protracted war/insurgency against Reaper invasion, and encouraging voluntary recruiting and propaganda drives to build up human support. Cerberus troopers, always autonomous even under their (unknown) indoctrination, are directed to maintain contact with their former lives and present a facade of normality: a Trooper from Eden Prime goes on a tour, shows off how cool and strong he/she has become, and offers the typical promise of Cerberus recruitment: ‘with implants like Shepard’s, you can fight like Shepard.’
The big difference in the narrative of From the Ashes is the impending threat of Reaper invasion: given Eden Prime’s size and proximity to Earth, everyone knows the Reapers will eventually come to occupy it, and whether Cerberus will stand their ground is a real question. As Shepard fights through Cerberus forces at the dig site, storm clouds gather and the Reapers begin to approach, quickly becoming a race against time to acquire the Prothean before the Reapers land.
The local Face of Cerberus, likely a Centurian repeatedly referenced as the liason with the colony and dealt with over radio/vidcom before, is present at the end to present a Moral Choice: Cerberus had been planning to abandon Eden Prime after the Reaper Invasion in order to conserve resources, a fact Shepard can learn through data logs, but if Shepard hands over Javik the Centurian vows to stay and fight for the Colony, thus giving more chances for refugees to flee and tying down more Reaper forces.
The moral choice, between keeping a squadmate and seeing the colony abandoned to the Reaper, or giving up the Prothean to Cerberus and having Cerberus stand by and defend the colony, also has a third-way option: if you found all the data logs proving that Cerberus was only using Eden Prime as a propaganda piece, intending to abandon it, Liara can user her Shadow Broker contacts to blackmail Cerberus into staying behind even if you do take Javik. Best of both worlds, providing more assets and the companion.
Regardless of what you do, the post-DLC news sees Cerberus try to spin it to their advantage: either Cerberus heroically fights a doomed battle to defend Humanity, or else Cerberus was sabotaged by Alliance forces and regretfully forced to abandon the colony.
As for Javik himself, what the Alliance hoped and Cerberus feared he could do (shed more light on the Crucible) turns out to be wrong. Javik really follows whoever you sent him to: if you don’t recruit him he turns up in the news as a pro-Cerberus spokesman (approving of their no-matter-the-costs attitude), and ultimately turns up as a boss fight addition later on if you didn’t recruit him.
===
Genophage Arc
===
Back to the A Plot, Cerberus actually keeps much of the same role as in canon: it’s really the Salarians who change, as we see the evolution of the Cerberus-Alliance Alliance turn into a question of inter-species alliances.
The Alliance, personified by Hackett, Udina, and Anderson (who, on Earth, is reporting on his attempts to find the Conduit while fighting the war with Cerberus), is suspicious of Cerberus. They share that suspicion with the Turians, for reasons to come clear. The next anti-Cerberus group is… the Krogan, who (rightly) believe that Cerberus fears them as much as the Salarians do.
And it’s the Salarians who become the first of the major powers to have a common interest with Cerberus: less about being pro-Human, and more about being anti-genophage, when their nominal allies bull-rush her into making what she views as the biggest mistake of a millennia, the Dalatrass reaches out to Cerberus to make a deal… and thus the question of how Cerberus knows where to be and why is eventually answered.
The Cerberus attack on Surkesh is the first crisis of the pan-Human alliance, and the first time Cerberus pulls the Spectre-card to justify not being held to account. In an excellent opportunity for a conversation with TIM, or at least Ambassador Cerberus, as Cerberus lays out it’s governing philosophy for the Reaper War: it does not intend to replace one grave threat to Humanity with another, and it considers a cured Krogan species to be an equally grave threat to the galaxy, and Humanity.
The Alliance and Krogan are furious, but initial demands to have Cerberus’s Spectre status revoked are surprisingly rejected by all three members of the Council, even the Turians. Disclaiming the ability to punish Spectres acting within a standing Council mandate, and counseling Shepard that Cerberus is still supplying resources and troops to the Alliance’s own Crucible efforts, the Council more or less says they won’t interfere with this ‘internal Human dispute.’ The Alliance-Cerberus proxy war officially begins, allies on one planet and enemies on the next, with the line between enemy and ally increasingly blurred.
Turning to the Turian Primarch, with Wrex/Wreave and Shepard demanding why the Turian Councilor would tolerate Cerberus actions, Primarch Victus refuses to explain… but does suggest Shepard take a look at the crashed Turian cruiser on Tuchanka. Which starts the Turian Bomb Plot, which actually explains this dynamic.
It turns out that there is something worse than Cerberus using a planet-cracking bomb to devastate the Krogan and start a Turian-Krogan War, and that is using the threat of using a planet-cracking bomb to blackmail the Turian Hierarchy. As long as Cerberus holds this planet-******, the Hierarchy can’t openly move against them: this is why the Turian Councilor accepts Cerberus’s role, despite barely-constrained animosity. Primarch Victus sent the Cruiser and his son in a covert attempt to retake the bomb, but the Reapers used the Ground Canon (change of enemy there) to shoot down the Cruiser and now the effort is stalled.
The Turian Bomb Plot stays mostly the same from there on, but it does introduce a Moral Choice at the end: whether to actually take the bomb from Cerberus, or to leave it with them. Though Cerberus remains largely antagonistic, the end-point decision comes when Ambassador Cerberus (or an equivalent Cerberus figure), via hologram, spells out what Cerberus and Humanity is getting from the blackmail: in addition to political tolerance of the Cerberus-Alliance alliance, by keeping the bomb active and secret Cerberus has compelled the Turian Hierarchy to send forces to defend Human colonies that would otherwise have been defenseless and reaped. Shepard is presented with the choice to allow this blackmail to continue (knowing you’ll have Turian forces out of compulsion, but keeping Human colonies safe), or to stop it (hopefully earning Turian forces out of gratitude and allowing the Hierarchy to be anti-Cerberus, at the cost of Human colonies being destroyed).
Plus, some personal guilt at Primarch Victus’s anger at your possible betrayal, and sorrow for his son. Your Shepard’s relationship with the Turians is going to be determined by this, and even Garrus is a little cross. (Maybe.)
Moving back to the A-plot, the Cerberus anti-cure in-fighting gets amped up when Cerberus takes a role in the Tuchanka mission: now aiming to prevent the genophage from being cured at any cost, even at the cost of the Reaper successfully poisoning the atmosphere, Cerberus is involved in blunting and trying to stop the Krogan convoy: rather than a crashing Turian fighter it would be a Cerberus bombing run while dog-fights occur overhead, and by mission or admission we would learn that Cerberus is able to act so easily because the Dalatrass and the STG is assisting them. The Dalatrass offer to Shepard is coached in terms that she will honor her bargain with Cerberus, of resources for the Crucible and fleets for Earth, if the genophage is stopped or sabotaged. But, she adds, she would much rather be indebted to the Alliance than rely on Cerberus as the only trustworthy partner in Humanity, a foreshadowing of an Important Consequence.
Ideally I’d also like someone, not necessarily Cerberus, to counter Wrex/Eve optimism of Krogan benevolence. Ambassador Cerberus on the Citadel can make a good Devil’s Advocate if you approach him before the mission, challenging the idea that Wrex’s reforms will hold or whether the Krogan can restrain their dissidents. But that would be out of mission, if you went to his office in the Embassies.
The Genophage Arc is pretty awesome as is, and so there’s not much need to change the ending setup of outcomes beyond context: the Salarians are the first species in which turning them pro-Cerberus is a serious possibility. While that mechanic will be discussed later, the Genophage Arc can not only be cast in terms of Krogan/Salarian, but also in terms of whether the Salarians are pro-Alliance or pro-Cerberus, with different flavor outcomes along the lines of who the STG is cooperating with more: new ties with old foes, or enhanced cooperation with the Alliance?
Curing the Genophage also has a separate conditional associated with it: triggering the Turian Bomb. If the genophage is to be cured and the Krogan turned into a galactic threat, Cerberus is going to do its best to mitigate the threat to Humanity as much and as soon as possible. Not only does the bomb wipe out a good number of the adult Krogan, setting back their expansion by some time, but by instigating a Turian-Krogan War (eventually) it commits the Turians to devoting their post-war efforts into containing the problem. As the final cherry on top, Cerberus can anticipate that even if, if, the Krogan learned of Cerberus’s own involvement, they would be far more focused on the Turians and would give Humanity as a whole a pass (thanks to Shepard’s intervention in curing the genophage) and limit their grudge to Cerberus itself. So… lose-lose-win, I suppose.
This is one of those wicked-seeming consequences that is actually pretty-easy to avoid: just do the bomb before Tuchanka and don’t leave it with Cerberus. It’s more of a flavor/completionist mechanic than a major plot-changer, meant to demonstrate the still-real dark side of Cerberus when it doesn’t get its way… and to be honest, people who leave it with Cerberus are probably going to sabotage the cure as well.
Regardless of outcome, the Genophage Arc closes by at least the temporary Krogan-Turian Alliance, the solidifying of the Turian-Alliance Alliance, and a calming of the Cerberus-Alliance infighting as the primary driver of infighting, the genophage, has been irreversibly resolved. The genophage arc itself has three effective endstates: Genophage Sabotaged, Genophaged Cured and Bomb Detonated, or Genophage Cured and Bomb Not Detonated.
With the infighting dying down for the moment, progress can proceed on the Crucible and on a counter-offensive to retake Earth. More is needed, though: more troops to drive the Reapers off of Earth, and more workers and scientists to continue building it. Not needing the Citadel Coup development, two possibilities are raised: reaching out for various assets/assistance to bolster the mission (all of those major side-missions) , or stopping the new flow of Heretic Geth that are fighting for the Reapers across the galaxy.
This is effectively the Middle Game, at which the player can fool around with all those side quests in the context of building up the war effort rather than dilly-dallying at the end of days. Story-wise Rannoch is the next driver, so moving there…
===
Rannoch Arc
What’s there to talk about, honestly? The canon game had a pretty sound basis of carry-over import consequences, and the missions themselves were appropriate and sensible for the setting. I could say that the Geth deserve a bit harder scrutiny for their past, and taken to task for their own needed compromises for peace, but overall it’s a pretty good scenario that doesn’t require much in the way of change.
I suppose the key three differences I would make come into the resolution: the context of Legion’s sacrifice, the fate of the Geth, and the resolutions that don’t require genocide to be one-sided and tragic.
For the first… I thought it was really stupid that Legion died regardless of decision. It was forced, it was arguably unnecessary, and above all it felt incredibly fake: Geth are by lore copy-paste programs, and there not being any copy of Legion to re-load ignores one of the fundamental traits of the Geth.
So as much as I love a good Necessary Sacrifice, Legion should stay. If anything, Legion should be the potential permanent companion: let Tali stay with her people, organizing them, and be a romance on the Citadel sort of NPC.
Legion/Geth VI being a companion depends on being around to do so, and this leads me to my second change: change Geth’s flash-bang to some sort of hacking-control that finally broke the Geth’s resistance to hacking. Still foiled by the Reaper Code, this new weapon fulfills the idea of Xen’s ambitions of returning the Geth back into the tools they once were. It also has the effect that no matter what the outcome, the Geth military strength remains available: either because they are free, or because they are slaves. This works with the greater narrative’s idea that the Reapers, while overwhelming, can be slowed with conventional forces, and the Geth provide a big part of that.
So, being intact no matter what, the Legion shell could be a good default companion character, all the more with differing narrative impacts depending on whether Legion is a shackled AI/VI, or free-willed. Writing heavy, sure, but hey. This is a head-canon scenario in the first place.
But for the last, I think the ending of the arc would have been better if there had been no genocide no matter the choice: not to say there shouldn’t be a faction-decision or unequal outcomes, but rather that outcomes emphasizing that the factions aren’t ready to co-exist as equals, that they learned the wrong lessons, strikes me as a bit more tragic.
For the Quarians, it’s obvious: by following through with Xen’s plan, they never truly accept that their creations became alive. More interested in dominating their creations than understanding them, the Geth are controlled, shackled, and once again the obedient tools they once were. In gratitude/exchange for Shepard’s help, the Quarians join the war with their new army.
For the Geth, it’s less so: more that the Geth still don’t understand their creators, and still haven’t learned to be, well, equal members of society. In this case, Legion’s upload of the Reaper Code will switch the tables: the Geth are now able to take control of the Quarians’ machines, uploading themselves across the Migrant Fleet, and the Quarians are now prisoners of the Geth. The Geth decline genocide, having learned that much… but their efforts to ‘understand’ their Creators take a disturbing turn for the Quarians, as they lose all freedom and all chance for independence on their own homeworld. The Geth are now the dominant aspect of Quarian life, ‘for their own good’, but still haven’t grasped that their own manner of actions is what sparks fear.
For peace, it’s co-existence without domination. Maybe it’s MAD, or maybe it’s because neither can take the other, but the Geth leave the planet to the Quarians, and the Quarians leave the Geth their Dyson Sphere. The Dyson Sphere itself might be the best means of peace: the idea that if preserved (choice-dependent), the Geth could upload themselves into an entity too smart to be controlled by Xen’s weapon. Regardless, uneasy peace that can lead way to co-existence, while both forces submit ships and scientists to the effort. Possibly an opportunity-cost of this would be that this ‘best’ outcome has the fewest immediate rewards/war assets.
In the end, Rannoch ends with the Geth and Quarian fleets unified and offered to the War Effort.
===
N7 Missions
Most of these are side missions that included Cerberus as an enemy in the main game, but in which Cerberus plays a more... well, a role that you can actually side with, and one that collectively plays up the infighting/common cause between Cerberus and the Alliance as they fight for the soul of humanity.
While fighting Cerberus is still possible, or even expected, in these revamped missions, it’s definitely intended to take the tone of a shadow war hidden from the public. Hacket and Petrovsky will share command and influence in the protection of a colony during the day, while sending strike teams against eachother at night. Most of these take place in the context of the N7 missions, and the N7 missions themselves can be thought of as a chain.
The key, nebulous idea when dealing with Cerberus here is the Legitimacy Conflict: between Cerberus and the Alliance, who has the greater claim to being the legitimate guardian of Humanity?
Put in terms of a cumulative point system, one that can also incorporate prior choices by Shepard, the group with more points is generally seen as the more legitimate party. It’s not quite synonymous with popularity, but ultimately it will have end-game consequences.
---
N7: Cerberus Recruiting
A re-make of the N7: Cerberus Abductions missions, and the first N7 mission. Though Shepard learned that Cerberus soldiers use husk-like implants on Mars, Cerberus is going public with the existence of the implants in order to bolster its recruiting drive, something it can now do openly thanks to the Spectre deal.
Cerberus is setting up an open recruiting presence on Benning, a major Alliance colony that the Alliance has only a token presence on. Shepard is sent ‘undercover’ (read: in civilian clothes) in order to see what it’s all about, and to try and crack into the Cerberus data base in order to figure out where volunteers go once they sign the contract and are taken away to Cerberus’s secret training camps.
This begins as a no-combat mission, with Shepard going through Firebase Ghost which is a still-civilian area. Through the various buildings you see civilians watching various Cerberus presentations, or listening to recruiters/videos. You’d have Cerberus troopers showing off their skills, a few ‘home town recruits’ come back, and a general propaganda fest along with an admin area (the back building of the courtyard) in which Cerberus sign-in their volunteers.
Shepard hides in the crowds, and the background, with a basic stealth-mechanic. Shepard is tasked with avoiding notice while getting to a few locations and dropping off spy devices: if Shepard is seen, Shepard is put on the ‘divergence’ path, which is to say that Shepard is forced to openly go to the Main Event, but without the chance to drop spyware.
The Main Event, after Shepard drops the devices or is seen, is the explanation of the implants that takes place before a crowd in the alley. Cerberus presents its implants as the key to Human survival: that these implants can make any run-of-the-mill civilian capable of fighting with the best of the Alliance in a matter of days. Listing off a list of ‘upgrades’ the implants allow, an unmasked Cerberus trooper with a sympathetic personality works to assure the crowd that despite the looks, they’re still human. This, they explain, allows them to defend human colonies that the Alliance would abandon, like Benning itself. When some people are still suspicious and doubtful, noting they look like Reaper tech, the Spokesman pulls the trump card: these are perfectly safe implants, because these are the same sort of implants they put in the Great Commander Shepard when Shepard worked with them!
Don’t you want to be more like the Commander?
If the Commander were still hidden, this presents the player with a chance to speak up (Paragon), to stay quiet and hidden (Renegade), or a P/R check to make a speech going ‘bull****.’ Speaking up just reveals your presence in a non-convincing argument, but the P/R makes an inspirational, if not compelling, case that it’s not implants that make the heroes of Humanity, and that anyone really wanting to serve their species should join the Alliance.
Regardless, the recruiting event quickly becomes ruined when gunfire breaks out: a Reaper force has somehow snuck into the city, and is beginning to attack. The Cerberus troops react with clear and vocal orders to protect the crowd, and Shepard is left with a conditional choice: if Shepard was caught/exposed himself, Shepard will end up fighting the Reapers with Cerberus and protecting the civilians, but loses the chance to hack the Cerberus mainframe. If Shepard was still hidden, Shepard can leave Cerberus to handle the Reapers while taking advantage of the chaos to hack the computer as Hackett instructed. After the attack is over, Cerberus initiates a lock-down and Shepard has to leave.
The mission has three effective end-states: Shepard exposed but no persuasion, Shepard exposed but persuasive, and Shepard unexposed. Let’s call them A, B, and C.
In A, the outcome is that Cerberus gains legitimacy for heroically defending the civilians, spurring more recruitment and Cerberus-related War Assets. Between the Alliance’s lack-luster showing and Hackett having to waste more resources on more penetration attempts, the Alliance loses assets and/or 1 legitimacy.
In B, Shepard’s commanding presence, inspirational speech, and role in repelling the attack steals Cerberus’s thunder and drives Alliance recruiting instead. Alliance legitimacy greatly gained (+2), more Alliance assets, and fewer Cerberus assets.
In C, Cerberus gains legitimacy for being the on-the-spot defenders, but loses war assets because a number of their recruits die. The Alliance, successfully penetrating the server and not having to try again, saves war assets.
---
N7: Cerberus Lab
The follow-on from Cerberus Recruiting, a look at the more implementation-level aspects of the Cerberus troopers. The Alliance’s ultimate success at penetrating Cerberus recruiting stations leads them to this ‘training camp’, which is actually a Cerberus Lab.
Firebase Glacier is the production-phase of Cerberus troopers, where civilians are given implants and equipment. It doesn’t have the horror of Sanctuary, but it’s definitely meant to shade in the personality changes of indoctrination effects. As Shepard fights his/her way through the lab on section at a time, with doors initially closed, data pads and such offer a chance to see the changes.
First area are the docks, in which Shepard has to secure the LZ from the Cerberus guards. There should be a slight change to allow a clear disembarkment process, such as a new Cerberus recruit might follow. A data pad comments on the new faces of the volunteers, and suggests what a change they’ll be going through.
Second area is the first half of the lab, and particularly the operating table. It’s a respectful operation, and a scientist log talks about how different people respond to varying levels with the implants: some do better, and some do worse. Due to the number of volunteers, the lab suggests either stricter screening or opening up more processing labs.
Third half of the upstairs lab, the area with computer consoles, should clearly be a waiting area for people preparing for treatment: benches, a soda machine, etc. This might be a good place for a new volunteer to talk about how all the unmasked troopers he’s seen are total stoic badasses when they aren’t trying to be nice, and how he doesn’t intend to become like that.
Fourth is the down-stairs area, which is a techie-area where they evaluate how the implants are adjusting to people. This is a good place for a lab techie to have an interview with the previous recruit, in which we can see how indoctrination is changing the personality to a Cerberus-desired viewpoint. Particularly important is a reminder that troopers take deliberate effort to be nice and pleasant to ‘civilians’, and that recruiting duty isn’t for everyone.
Fifth and final is the upstairs control room, which the end-mission ‘surprise’ is that the implants really are derived from Reaper tech, and are being used to teach/train the volunteers their skills and loyalty through indoctrination. Cerberus is finally discovered as using reaper-tech implant-indoctrination on their troops: it’s been incredibly effective in making combat-capable troops, and is also a safeguard to stopping Reaper-indoctrination attempts.
The Moral Choice of this discovery is to either reveal it to the public, making everyone aware of the brainwashing that occurs, or not and letting these practices continue for the greater good. Ideally this is something you can confront Ambassador Cerberus and Udina over, though both cynically suggest that most people won’t care and that volunteers will still sign up.
Exposing the truth certainly does a hit to Cerberus’s legitimacy, but this is also corresponded by a reduction in war assets due to fewer volunteers. The Alliance is better viewed, but there are fewer troops: a news report confirms that Cerberus recruiting continues despite a drop, but a Cerberus-Alliance deal to hand-over convicted criminals is blocked.
Keeping silent rewards you by not hurting you: higher war assets, though this also means higher Cerberus legitimacy. Cerberus recruitment continues, and Cerberus works out a deal with the Alliance to take custody of convicted prisoners and suspected indoctrination victims.
---
N7: Communication Hub
The communication arrays are property of Cerberus, and the Alliance suspects that the database has information on a variety of Cerberus projects… including the locations of their Sanctuary Project, an open-secret of secret colonies Cerberus has initiated as a place to hide human refugees. With a Reaper attack imminent, the Alliance has graciously offered assistance to help destroy that data… but Hackett has a scheme to steal it instead.
While you’re nominally fighting Reapers to help Cerberus, complete with background of other com stations also fighting Reapers across the wasteland, in actuality Shepard may be fighting both Reapers and Cerberus. As long as you actually destroy the data at each node, Cerberus will fight the Reapers instead of you. If you pick the button to hack it, however, both Cerberus and the Reapers will attack you. Across the battlefield on other stations, as well as on intercom chatter, there are chatter-reports of increasing Cerberus/Alliance ‘friendly fire’ incidents due to dust storms.
Besides being primarily a ways to allow the player to roleplay Alliance/Cerberus preferences, and to illustrate how tense the alliance can be, the outcome primarily has a legitimacy difference.
If you destroy the data then Cerberus keeps the colonies secret, and everyone credits Cerberus with them. There’s an implied coverup about a Sanctuary world going quiet from Reaper attacks, but Cerberus Ambassador publicly denies it and says that it was a deliberate blackout for security reasons.
If you steal the data, the Alliance steals headlines when it’s able to swoop in and save a Sanctuary that was uncovered by Reapers, and Cerberus ‘graciously’ invites them into the project as a co-guardian. Alliance legitimacy up.
---
N7: Fuel Reactor
Not a Cerberus-fighting mission, but a demonstration of the more positive side of the Cerberus-Alliance partnership. This is an Alliance fuel station that has fallen to Reaper infiltration, and Cerberus soldiers sent to help went dark. Because fuel is so vital, Shepard is sent to help out.
Along with the puzzle/exploration factor, a good part of this mission is discovering what had occurred. Some of the nobler aspects of Cerberus and the Troopers are illustrated here through recordings and/or testimony of survivors. Cerberus troopers fought the Reaper infiltrators, and a number of volunteers took certain death in the poisonous chemicles in order to stop a reactor overlord. Possibly also some corpses to suggest that some troops lured strong Reaper troops into the reactor, and then locked themselves inside to certain death. Possibly the toxins were deliberately released because it was realized they stopped husks from sabotaging the reactor.
Picking up on a discarded idea from the leaked script, a fun moral choice of the reactor would have been to possibly use the toxins as a separate War Asset. Choose between fuel or a new bioweapon that works on Husks.
---
N7: Fighter Base
Just for ****s and giggles, I’d make this a Geth attack on a fighter facility. The surviving defenders would be holed up in That Room.
More seriously, this N7 mission is a prime candidate for being a lead-in to the Dark Energy Plot (to be mentioned more later).
---
Ardat Yakshi Monastary
Simply because it doesn’t fit well anywhere else, a bit of a context change occurs in the set-up for this mission: Liara brings it up because she discovered contacts between the Asari military and Cerberus, which dispatched a significant strike force to the remote AY monastery. Following the trail to see what they were up to, we find signs of the war and plenty of casualties, from Cerberus to Reaper to Asari.
As we investigate, we come across recordings and evidence of a Cerberus massacre of the Ardat Yakshi, even before the Reapers arrived. As we investigate further, we discover that the Cerberus massacre was actually instigated at the request of the Asari: the Asari Government knows that Banshees are made from those with the AY gene, wasn’t going to defend such a remote location from the Reapers, but didn’t want them to take the Ardat Yakshi either. They made a deal with Cerberus, promising support (both political and military) for Humanity and an official cover-up if Cerberus would wipe out the monastery. If the Reapers hadn’t intervened, and if Samara/Morinth hadn’t be in place to interfere, Cerberus would have wiped out the monastery and no one would have ever known.
(Note: if Morinth/Samara survived ME2, there are more AY survivors. If not, Samara’s daughters are the last survivors.)
Samara’s role is a bit different, as is the role of the Code. Basically, while AY must be hunted down and brought to the Monastaries, while within the Monasteries they must be protected. Samara came to protect the AY, and her daughters, from all attackers. Morinth came to free her sisters, and the other AY, after disguising herself as a new enrollee.
Rather than the suicide, the Moral Choice comes down to whether to fulfill the Cerberus job and detonate the bomb, killing all the Banshees and AY (including Samara’s daughters) and gaining Asari support, or letting the surviving AY go. Letting them go free carries risks, though, due to Morinth and Samara’s intent: retribution on Asari High Command for trying to have the AY murdered. Morinth, already a serial killer, promises to teach her sisters/the survivors how to take retribution through the same. Samara, a Justicar, vows to take down the officers responsible, no matter how many soldiers they put in her way. Sparing the innocent, in other words, is accompanied by either letting a Justicar go rampant on the military leaders of the Asari, or letting Morinth make more AY like herself. Even if you don’t have them and only the Daughters or left, you still don’t get assets if you don’t trigger the bomb and leave them behind.
In terms of consequences, triggering the Cerberus bomb gets notable Asari War Assets… but also establishes a working understanding, and blackmail, between the Asari military and Cerberus. Sparing the survivors gives you few/no assets: Morinth gives you a modest net-positive since her retribution is precise, but Samara triggers a news story about wiping out a bunch of corrupt, ‘indoctrinated’, generals which and her war assets barely break even. The daughters alone give no assets.
Retour en haut
