156 réponses à ce sujet

[Ryriena]

I'm sorry if this has been asked ready, but during ME3 Cerberus is shown to have an army large enough to put up a fight. When it's shown in ME2 they spent at least above a trillion credits to bring Shepard back and rebuilding the Normandy. So how could they afford to hire a army to take the Citadel? Also why did they attack the Citadel they didn't explain that very well in the game?

[Nethalf]

Red lyrium.

[Wulfram]

It was an attempt at a coup, it didn't necessarily need a large force to pull it off.  Once the defence gets organised they get trashed.

 

As for why they attacked the citadel, there doesn't seem to be much of a good answer.  The best explanation IMO would be that they knew it was the catalyst, but unfortunately that's refuted by later events.

[JasonShepard]

They might have had some clue that the Citadel would be important with respect to the Crucible, even if they didn't know exactly how.

 

Otherwise, it's just the power argument. Cerberus' plan was to assassinate all the Councillors except Udina, leaving him in power. Udina would then be able to give the Citadel fleets to Cerberus. Or, alternatively, if all the Councillors were taken alive, Cerberus could use their indoctrination tech to take over the Council and essentially be in charge.

[GreyLycanTrope]

They've been building up an army since after ME2 using what they got from the collector base, the operation against he collectors made them somewhat popular, but them managing to build up an entire army and take over Omega in a 6 month period between ME2 and ME3 isn't something that's been particually well explain past that it just sort of happens. Same goes for their financial situation, it was crippled in the books and then just shot up again to a seemingly inexhaustable point of being able to afford numerous ships troops and weapons productions for some unexplained reason.

 

As to the Coup there was some speculation in the game,  the codex gives us this:

"Udna's attempted coup will no doubt be analyzed for generations to come, but a clear picture is beginning to merge. Udina had contacted Cerberus to coordinate what was intended to be a bloodless takeover of the Citadel, in which he would force the other councilors to grant him emergency powers so that he could command the Citadel Fleet. He would then direct the fleet to liberate his homeworld, Earth.

 

The plan fell apart early when Executor Pallin and the salarian councilor caught wind of it. In defense of the plan, the Illusive Man dispatched his top assassins, commanded by Kai Leng, to kill them. Udina had little choice but to support the assassins with an armed force sufficient to hold the Citadel. Captured confidantes have indicated that Udina and Leng's alliance was relatively fragile: Udina may have planned to turn on Cerberus once the fleet was his to command, and Leng departed when he calculated that Udina would not succeed.

 

Persistent rumors suggest that Udina might have been a high-functioning victim of Reaper indoctrination. His actions played right into the Reapers' plans: even if the coup failed, it would damage Citadel governance. If it succeeded, his plan to retake Earth would likely have turned into a military blunder that Council forces could ill afford. However, there is no direct evidence of his indoctrination, nor obvious opportunity. It is more likely that Udina acted out of desperation, and in doing so, cost humanity its councilor."

 

So whether this was indoctrination or Udina being aligned just with Cerberus(who were also possible brainwashed and crazy) is uncertain. Not really a fan of every character who disagreed with Shepard tying back the Cerberus myself.

[soren4ever]

It's never specifically stated, I always assumed it was for them to get more subjects for their experiments and it didn't really matter whether they succeeded or failed.

 

If they failed, they would still scare more refugees away from the Citadel and towards Sanctuary

 

If they succeeded, they would have a whole station full of subjects to experiment on (a la Omega). Plus, any resistance against their plans would be less organized without a central hub like the citadel.

[Barquiel]

The Illusive Man was indoctrinated. I'd imagine the Reapers altered his thought patterns so he thought capturing the citadel would help his goals. It could be seen as a way for the reapers to control the citadel without a frontal assault (they obviously need the Citadel's help in harvesting the human race, they could control the relay network and the reapers knew about the crucible plans).

[Ryriena]

It was an attempt at a coup, it didn't necessarily need a large force to pull it off. Once the defence gets organised they get trashed.

As for why they attacked the citadel, there doesn't seem to be much of a good answer. The best explanation IMO would be that they knew it was the catalyst, but unfortunately that's refuted by later events.

Actually, yeah you do in fact need a large force to take over a structure such as the citadel. They've got peacekeepers all over the place along with soldiers as it's hold the government. Yeah I know it was coup, why would they join? How did Tim get indoctrinated, in the first place, I destroyed the base in my game. I'm confused by how and why they been building this army?

[Iakus]

To show that Udina really was a douche and needed to be shot.  Because everyone wanted to shoot him anyway.

 

And to have a showdown with the VS.  Because drama.

 

And so we can see what a bad@$$ antagonist Kai Leng is (stop snickering!)

 

Oh, wait, story reason?  Well, you got me there.

[ImaginaryMatter]

The Illusive Man was indoctrinated. I'd imagine the Reapers altered his thought patterns so he thought capturing the citadel would help his goals. It could be seen as a way for the reapers to control the citadel without a frontal assault (they obviously need the Citadel's help in harvesting the human race, they could control the relay network and the reapers knew about the crucible plans).

Actually, yeah you do in fact need a large force to take over a structure such as the citadel. They've got peacekeepers all over the place along with soldiers as it's hold the government. Yeah I know it was coup, why would they join?

 

The problem I have with the Reapers altering the TIM to send a large force to conquer the Citadel is that the Reapers seemed have to easily captured the station during the events of Priority: Cerberus Headquarters, suggesting that TIM or someone else simply piloted the station from the control panel in the Keeper tunnels.

[Ryriena]

To show that Udina really was a douche and needed to be shot. Because everyone wanted to shoot him anyway.

And to have a showdown with the VS. Because drama.

And so we can see what a bad@$$ antagonist Kai Leng is (stop snickering!)

Oh, wait, story reason? Well, you got me there.

This won a cookie. I kind of don't understand how or why they decide to go that route.

[Wulfram]

Actually, yeah you do in fact need a large force to take over a structure such as the citadel. They've got peacekeepers all over the place along with soldiers as it's hold the government. Yeah I know it was coup, why would they join? How did Tim get indoctrinated, in the first place, I destroyed the base in my game. I'm confused by how and why they been building this army?

 

The objective was to kill the other councillors in order to place Udina in charge.  Once they've done that, their forces - at least, those openly claiming allegiance to Cerberus - can be defeated without it hurting the plan.  They don't need to hold ground for any significant amount of time.

[Ryriena]

The objective was to kill the other councillors in order to place Udina in charge. Once they've done that, their forces - at least, those openly claiming allegiance to Cerberus - can be defeated without it hurting the plan. They don't need to hold ground for any significant amount of time.

Yeah they do if they need that time to hold a place up. It's a basic tactical move... To overwhelm the enemy to brake their moral ect.

[cap and gown]

This won a cookie. I kind of don't understand how or why they decide to go that route.

 

You could give it a like, you know. I did.

[Ryriena]

You could give it a like, you know. I did.

Gives you a cookie

[DeathScepter]

a lot of ME3 Cerberus don't make sense in Light of ME: Retribution. Given that Much of their assets are frozen and cells in prison and T.I.M. had to spend a lot of money to get Aria to help out in order for him to recover his bases. Well Crime Lords like Aria love power and money, So getting her to help is not cheap.

[Ryriena]

a lot of ME3 Cerberus don't make sense in Light of ME: Retribution. Given that Much of their assets are frozen and cells in prison and T.I.M. had to spend a lot of money to get Aria to help out in order for him to recover his bases. Well Crime Lords like Aria love power and money, So getting her to help is not cheap.

It's mind blogging at, how they where able to pull this off when the Tim is shown to waste money and power. Plus the fact, somehow they have enough to takeover places like Eden prime. Also takeover the of the citadel...

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

Udina drank essence of gelfling.

[themikefest]

They needed an excuse to kill Thane, Kirrahe and the Salarian councillor depending on your playthrough.

[teh DRUMPf!!]

 TIM and Shepard acquired different sets of data from the Mars archives.

 

I believe TIM's data indicated that the Citadel was an important component to using the Citadel, though he may not have known the exact importance of it, so he attempted to occupy it so that Shepard's allied forces would have to go through him to use it (or, not use it at all, as the case may be). Some characters speculate that Udina was indoctrinated, but it's just that: speculation.

[teh DRUMPf!!]

 TIM and Shepard acquired different sets of data from the Mars archives.

 

I believe TIM's data indicated that the Citadel was an important component to using the Citadel, though he may not have known the exact importance of it, so he attempted to occupy it so that Shepard's allied forces would have to go through him to use it (or, not use it at all, as the case may be). Some characters speculate that Udina was indoctrinated, but it's just that: speculation.

 

page'd, because bottom 'o' page sux.

[MassivelyEffective0730]

Bad writing and poor planning.

[Ryriena]

I'll go with the poor writing and stuff.

[SwobyJ]

a lot of ME3 Cerberus don't make sense in Light of ME: Retribution. Given that Much of their assets are frozen and cells in prison and T.I.M. had to spend a lot of money to get Aria to help out in order for him to recover his bases. Well Crime Lords like Aria love power and money, So getting her to help is not cheap.

 

It's mind blogging at, how they where able to pull this off when the Tim is shown to waste money and power. Plus the fact, somehow they have enough to takeover places like Eden prime. Also takeover the of the citadel...

 

All of this stuff is there to show that everything is an uphill battle for TIM.

 

If he succeeded around ME1-era, he'd have never been convinced to turn to Reaper tech.

If he succeeded around ME2-era, he'd have never been convinced to work in the Reapers' interests.

If he succeeded around ME3-era, he'd have never handed the Citadel to the Reapers for the sake of the chance to control them.

 

He struggled with the Reapers this whole time. He never once just said "The Reapers are right, and we need to work for them." Even at the very end, he tried to convince himself he can use the Reapers, instead of the other way around. But it was too late.

 

Cerberus works in very pin-pointed operations. They're not trying to work everywhere like the Alliance. They're not trying to safeguard whole major worlds like the Citadel species. Earth is already lost to them. And they're not trying to manipulate and suppress the entire galaxy like the Reapers, but instead looking long term - in a harmful way.

 

Here's the only places they do stuff in ME3 (not counting other less important stuff that people like Miranda may have run into):

-Sent a force into Mars archives, let in by a spy, to take the Crucible plans. Failed in that they never got the full plans. Successful in that they got enough to work with for future actions.

-There is a laboratory on Sanctum where they studied Reaper artifacts. Failed in that the lab was wrecked. Successful in that it was probably instrumental in they they understood how to indoctrinate individuals to be troops.

-Sent a force into Grissom Academy after it is mostly evacuated, to take viable indoc subjects. Nearly failed utterly, unless you count the few possibly useful people they killed there.

-Tried to take a female krogan in a smash and grab on Sur'Kesh, possibly tipped off by the Dalatrass herself. Failed, as it only served to encourage an alliance.

-Tried to detonate a bomb on Tuchanka. Failed as long as you stop it.

-Tried to take a military installation on Tuchanka, which makes clear they wanted the krogan out of the way so they could use Tuchanka as a base. Failed.

-Tried to take civilians on Benning, which was denied by the organization as rogue elements, and with how indoc works it very well might have been (see indoc turian cultists in the comics). Failed.

-Had a fighter base on Novaria, which is duh because its front corps were there. Failed.

-Tried a major operation in order to assassinate Council leadership or at least destabilize the Citadel. Failed mostly.

-Took Omega before ME3 (still their biggest fight ever), until we can take it back, crippling much of their military arm except for Cronos.

-Sent a force to eliminate/abduct ex-Cerberus scientists once they found out what they were studying.

-Tried to weaken the Alliance communication network

-Conducted husk research and civilian indoctrination on Horizon, under the guise of being a private refugee facility.

-Had a main base at Cronos Station, staffed in case of attack.

-TIM tipping off the Reapers to the progress of the Alliance on the Crucible plan, and residing there (its unknown why he is alone)

 

 

With how much the Normandy itself and the Alliance can be involved in, this list isn't THAT extensive. It pushes the boundary of belief (I personally would have liked a few of these missions replaced by fighting geth), but there's always reason behind it. The more of these missions you do, the more sense you can have of Cerberus weakening. The less of them you do, the more formidable Cerberus appears.

 

They're never trying to take on the Citadel directly with a fleet, or leading an army towards the Reapers. That's for the Alliance and the Citadel species. They're using our war distraction in order to mass-indoctrinate people for troops. They're using factories in order to quickly fabricate robots, weaponry, and armor.

 

But if they were not harmed by the previous ME2ish era activities of characters, they would have become the prominent human power in ME3 era, instead of the Alliance. They would have been humanity's doom, convincing enough people to use the Crucible to control the Reapers, even while their leader was indoctrinated. It was only through Shepard's determination to fight, not just struggle, that you can make it through to the final choice, uncorrupted (at least if you're not an ITer).

[SwobyJ]

I've decided to describe the progression of Cerberus within the ME3 context, including the Cerberus Coup:

-The Illusive Man has been controlled by the Reapers since the start. Keep in mind that 'control' can range from low to high degrees. However, he had enough functioning to resist and understand the Reapers, struggle against them. He was never factually wrong about anything, and he was onto a plan that would have worked, if he wasn't compromised from the start. He does the nasty stuff so Shepard never had to.

-His plans also would have worked if Shepard wasn't so insistent and successful. Each step drove TIM to be more and more Reaper in his mind.

-At first, Cerberus just tried to experiment on humanity, direct its 'evolution' to be in a place of prominence. This worked to a point, bringing humanity to have an embassy on the Citadel and a significant enough place in galactic commerce and society, whereas a non-TIM-nudged humanity may have simply stuck to a Batarian-level centrism by the time the Reapers arrived. This was mostly limited to a few Alliance black ops facilities, but Cerberus spread its influence over time. (SPECULATION)

~~~

-Shepard and/or the Alliance can shut down various Cerberus projects in ME1, but by this point they were more like side-activities while Cerberus was in the process of breaking off from the Alliance nearly entirely - its usefulness wearing off, in favor of private corporations and individual organization (becoming the 'terrorist group Cerberus') instead. At this point, TIM is still believing he his opposing the Reapers, and he is.

-Cerberus may have dealings with entities like Saren and Benezia, though I don't know how deep this goes. At the very least, TIM monitors the progression of the Reaper threat, knowing that Sovereign existed.

~~~

-In the 2 year span between ME1 and ME2, Cerberus becomes more open about itself existing, even though its actions and information is kept secret in a cell structure. The Cerberus logo is still largely believed to be a corporate logo during this period. At this point, Cerberus aims on more overtly expanding influence instead of through proxys (Terra Firma, churches, the Alliance, etc), and bringing Shepard back to fight the Reapers for them instead of the Alliance.

-The fight to stop the Collectors may have had a primary reason being to keep humanity as strong as it can be before the Reapers arrive, but it is clear that TIM himself really, really, really wanted their technology, which is just an offshoot of full-on Reaper tech. Call it Harbinger-tech if you want, TIM wanted Reaper tech. Shepard accuses him of wanting to grow his own Reaper. At the very least, that is partially true when we visit Cronos - a station that almost acts as a Reaper at that point, possibly encouraging the people inside, including TIM, to act in more Reaperish ways for all we know.

-Cerberus still continues some other experiments, even though its main aims now are to work with Shepard and prepare a force for the Reapers. In project Overlord, they attempt to be able to control the geth, which would give Cerberus a huge fighting force. Imagine if they were actually successful with so many of these projects!

 

-End result between Shepard's and other characters' actions, is that Cerberus is weakened structurally compared to where they'd like, but they also have the collector base to sift through for technology. Ironically, it's through their opposition's actions that they are driven this far into Reaper tech, whereas they otherwise might have still kept a degree of distance like in ME2.

~~~

-Somehow learning of the discovery of more archives in Mars, Cerberus sends an infiltration mech to learn about it, just as the Alliance/Hackett requests Liara. End result is that Cerberus gains some significant knowledge about the Crucible, but not enough to build it, and the Alliance gains significant knowledge about how to build the Crucible, but not enough to understand it. Each side works based on what they learned - Cerberus working to co-opt Alliance efforts and use the Crucible for Control, and the Alliance only understanding enough about the Crucible to view it as a weapon to Destroy. (And then for all we know, the Crucible itself might be a Reaper plan for some kind of Synthesis, but that's just theory)

 

-Cerberus' efforts regarding the salarians, krogan, and Alliance, are mostly to weaken the opposition so that Destroy isn't quickly possible. They want to take over the Crucible and make it their own, not really let the Alliance complete it themselves.

-'Sending' Cerberus to the Citadel is smarter than sending the Reapers themselves, at this point (even though people try to argue otherwise). The Citadel itself isn't absolutely necessary at that point, but the Coup is attempted in order to bring galactic civilization into a chaos that Cerberus can then manipulate through Udina. Again, in order to make the Crucible their own.

 

-Omega is there to act as a mining facility for eezo, a base for military operations, a home base for Collector tech excursions, research on Cerberus methods of organic control, and research on huskification and manipulation of Reaper forces. All technically side stuff at this point, but in-lore it is a prominent presence for Cerberus power, and toppling it can communicate a more distinct message of 'the organics taking control' (aka Destroy, for most part, maybe unless you go Paragon about it all), instead of turning into their enemy in order to defeat them (Control, for most part).

 

-The stuff to silence ex-Cerberus scientists wasn't big. They just didn't want anyone else to catch wind of their plans, nor did they want the Crucible to incorporate their scientific talent until they got control of it.

 

-Sanctuary was a breakthrough in terms of proving to TIM that Reaper forces can be controlled. As Leviathan teaches us, husks and their master Reaper actually have a many-on-1 connection through a form of QE. TIM therefore learns that if husks can be controlled, a similar yet more powerful signal could penetrate Reaper intelligences through the Crucible. It's a partial proof of concept. Still stupid, but just enough for TIM to be convinced that his plan for the Crucible is on the right track, instead of just him being manipulated by the Reapers. And like I've said before, it's all factually true stuff. The deception is in TIM being manipulated in itself.

 

-Cronos is abandoned by TIM when we get there, with Leng as a disposable mook to slow us down while TIM outright contacts the Reapers, nearly succumbing to them, but still convinced he is in the right. We meet him on the Citadel, taken by the Reapers instead of the originally planned Cerberus, and we face him in a similar way to Saren, except TIM is still sure that he can control the Reapers, instead of be subservient to them. We can convince him to try to activate the Crucible, but the simple logic of that being impossible for him to do, finally provides the proof he needs that he's been compromised. Shepard then ascends, meeting the changed Intelligence, who shows him that the paths are open, instead of being directed down a Destroy path of the Alliance.

 

~~~

The truth is that Jack Harper was not the right man for the job. He isolated himself due to personally scarring events (Eva, etc), while wanting control over others. He had a lust for power, instead of just opposing the oppressive powers (Reapers). He poised himself as humanity's savior, while he was really just their Lucifer. He passed the spark of knowledge to humanity, yes - and without it, Commander Shepard would have never been successful - but he is not a good guy, and he had to be taken out.

Even if Renegade in ME2 (Shepard willing to do anything in order to get the weapons he'll need) and Paragon in ME3 (Shepard willing to use anything in order to make the galaxy safer), TIM is a danger. Partially because he was already controlled, but largely because he's really not as good of a person as he thinks he is.