156 réponses à ce sujet

[SwobyJ]

Woops, forgot to mention Eden Prime, which Cerberus takes in order to try to learn more about the Prothians.

 

 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.

 

Yes. The Alliance focused on the war, and their larger portion of the data facilitated that, and the base ability of the Crucible to act as a weapon. Cerberus focused on the struggle, and their smaller portion of the data hinted more about the Citadel and Catalyst, with data from Thessia and Sanctuary experiments confirming what they thought they needed to know.

 

You know I like to go into crazy theories, but when I bring things more into the literal sense, it could be that we get low-Destroy in low-EMS BaseDestroyed because the Reaper-Heart doesn't intervene with the Destroy process, but we get low-Control in low-EMS BaseKept because a Reaper brain is involved and won't be default allow us to Destroy all Reapers.

 

In any case, it would have been nice to have more Crucible hinting in ME2, because in itself, the Crucible is NOT a bad concept. Something that all the sides work towards in their own ways, even the Reapers (even if more passively and with arrogant interest).

[Excella Gionne]

There were Cerberus sleeper agents including Udina within the Citadel, and with Udina as the Human Councilor, he had a lot of power to organize resources for the coup for when the time was right. That's how the coup was attempted, but of course, 3 people can take down an entire coup by themselves.

[SwobyJ]

There were Cerberus sleeper agents including Udina within the Citadel, and with Udina as the Human Councilor, he had a lot of power to organize resources for the coup for when the time was right. That's how the coup was attempted, but of course, 3 people can take down an entire coup by themselves.

 

One. Shepard is an heroic hero. lol

[FlyingSquirrel]

What's odd is that the game itself acknowledges that it's a less-than-obvious move for Cerberus - both the turian councilor and Anderson state that they don't understand why Cerberus did this. I almost wonder if they were planning to explain it more definitively at some point and the scene got cut for whatever reason.

 

Otherwise, I suppose the best explanation (aside from indoctrination) is that Udina thought he could use Cerberus to force the fleets into a more aggressive defense of Earth, and Cerberus wanted to disrupt the human-alien alliances so as not to risk the Reapers being destroyed before TIM's control plans were ready to be implemented.

 

It seems dumb on Udina's part, though. Even if he gained control of the Citadel, somebody like Primarch Victus would likely refuse to recognize his authority and tell all the turian commanders to ignore any directives from the Citadel until further notice. Maybe he could try to blackmail other species by taking their citizens on the Citadel hostage, but past that he wouldn't have any real leverage - the Council appears to derive its power from the consent of the various species, which would quickly disappear in the event of a Cerberus/Udina takeover.

[ImaginaryMatter]

What's odd is that the game itself acknowledges that it's a less-than-obvious move for Cerberus - both the turian councilor and Anderson state that they don't understand why Cerberus did this. I almost wonder if they were planning to explain it more definitively at some point and the scene got cut for whatever reason.

 

Otherwise, I suppose the best explanation (aside from indoctrination) is that Udina thought he could use Cerberus to force the fleets into a more aggressive defense of Earth, and Cerberus wanted to disrupt the human-alien alliances so as not to risk the Reapers being destroyed before TIM's control plans were ready to be implemented.

 

It seems dumb on Udina's part, though. Even if he gained control of the Citadel, somebody like Primarch Victus would likely refuse to recognize his authority and tell all the turian commanders to ignore any directives from the Citadel until further notice. Maybe he could try to blackmail other species by taking their citizens on the Citadel hostage, but past that he wouldn't have any real leverage - the Council appears to derive its power from the consent of the various species, which would quickly disappear in the event of a Cerberus/Udina takeover.

 

I think that might have been the writers lampshading their story.

 

Ultimately, I think the point of the coup was to have a mission on the Citadel and/or introduce Kai Leng; so, the writers ended up introducing it in the most hypercharged fashion they could.

[Ryriena]

I'm wondering if Mac waters understood the lore that was set up. As in ME1 for example, I took down several of their cells and killed most of their science researchers. I shut down project overlord in ME2 and uploaded several of Cerbuse files to the Alliance severs. Although, my main kept it for an insurance policy to protect her crew.


And costing them a trillion dollars just to rebuild my ship and me. I'm wondering, how the hell they could afford the raid and get Udina to be a douche again. I mean he was showing character development in number two. He was warming up to my Shepard at least, but my Shepard shot him in the end. He was someone my Shepard respected firmly disagrees with him often, but respects his opinions on things. She was also the type to tell him off a bit more than most. But she was hurt by his betrayal it also felt really out character for him to do such a thing.

[KaiserShep]

Project Overlord ultimately goes under no matter what. If Shepard allows David to remain hooked into technobondage, he goes catatonic and Gavin Archer puts him down. If Shepard doesn't investigate the site at all, Gavin sets a nuclear failsafe to scrap the entire thing.

[ImaginaryMatter]

I'm wondering if Mac waters understood the lore that was set up. As in ME1 for example, I took down several of their cells and killed most of their science researchers. I shut down project overlord in ME2 and uploaded several of Cerbuse files to the Alliance severs. Although, my main kept it for an insurance policy to protect her crew.

 

Mac Walters... understand the lore?

 

I think not.

[Ryriena]

Mac Walters... understand the lore?

I think not.

True, he made the stuff up as he went along....

[KaiserShep]

Was there ever any real established lore on Cerberus in ME1? We got the gist of what they were about, but I felt that their part was left pretty vague, like they were an afterthought to serve as the shadowy human organization to provide more human mooks for Shepard to fight. Of course, I would not have expected them to expand so rapidly into a super-rich empire, like the love child of Ian Flemming and George Lucas.

[Ryriena]

Was there ever any real established lore on Cerberus in ME1? We got the gist of what they were about, but I felt that their part was left pretty vague, like they were an afterthought to serve as the shadowy human organization to provide more human mooks for Shepard to fight.

Yeah read your codex man.

http://masseffect.wi...m/wiki/Cerberus

[KaiserShep]

The codex doesn't necessarily cover the full scope of their operations. Cerberus seemed like something that could have been set up in any number of ways beyond the few bases we saw and researchers Shepard kills.

[Ryriena]

According to the link, I gave you.

Cerberus arose from the tumult of the First Contact War in 2157 CE, a conflict between humanity and the first alien race they had encountered after achieving spaceflight, the turians. During the turian occupation of Shanxi, a trio of human mercenaries, Jack Harper, Eva Coré, and Ben Hislop, served with the Systems Alliance forces led by General Williams who were resisting the turians. After capturing a turian general, the mercenaries became embroiled in the general's conspiracy to use an ancient alien artifact to transform the turians into a race of invincible supersoldiers under his command. With the aid of the general's brother, Saren Arterius, Harper was able to foil the plot, but both Coré and Hislop were lost. In the aftermath, Harper realized that although the galaxy was abundant with knowledge and wealth, it was also a dangerous place, and a dark time was coming for humanity. It was humanity's duty to meet this challenge, and Harper resolved to do everything in his power to better humanity and ensure their place among the stars. With that, Harper published the manifesto of Cerberus and assumed the identity of the Illusive Man.

Expansion
As Cerberus grew, it had an indelible effect on the course of human development through acts of sabotage, assassination, media manipulation, and espionage. Cerberus became known to the public after a failed attempt to steal antimatter from the cruiser SSV Geneva in 2165. The sole surviving member of the operation named his sponsor "Cerberus", and the publicity from the incident spurred an increase in recruitment. In 2170, Cerberus engineered the Eldfell-Ashland Energy accident over Yandoa, exposing the colonists to dust-form element zero, and two other similar accidents over the preceding four months in two other colonies. The following year, Pope Clement XVI is assassinated via rosary beads coated with toxic materials in order to be replaced by Leo XIV, who has eschatological beliefs in with Cerberus's goal of militarizing humanity. Claude Menneau, a candidate for the leadership of the pro-human Terra Firma party, was also assassinated in 2173 at the order of the Illusive Man to allow Charles Saracino to gain the position. Cerberus was additionally responsible for funding Michael Moser Lang, who would go on to gun down United North American States president Enrique Aguilar and Chinese People's Federation premier Ying Xiong in 2176, and sabotaging the starship MSV Anixara in 2182, resulting in the death of Turian Hierachy war hawk Raherix Ursivus.

[KaiserShep]

To clarify, I mean when ME1 was the only game to be released. Obviously as the trilogy and comics built up, Cerberus was built up with it, but wasn't it said at some point that the writers were unsure where to go with them in the beginning?

[Ryriena]

I got that out from my ME1 codex man. I think it shows they had an idea that was scrubbed by Mac Waters.

[Sequin]

The initial stuff about Cerberus in ME1 comes from Hackett, who presents them as a covert branch of the Alliance that has gone rogue. That's all I remember off the top of my head.

I assume they dropped the "Terra Firma" sideplot from ME2 in order to implement exclusive human centric politics into Cerberus, then explained Terra Firma away in a novel so as to build up cred for TIM. But I don't follow development close enough to hazard much other than a guess in regards to that.

[SwobyJ]

Yes, Terra Firma is legit party, that was infiltrated by those who would be more sympathetic to Cerberus (and thus influence lots of people later on into joining them..).

 

The cell structure isn't what some people think..

 

In ME1, yes, you could say that each experiment was run by a different cell. Ok. But then once they got shut down (by Alliance or Shepard), TIM just reorganizes things so he ends up again with the same amount of cells. And even in this case, all those experiments could actually be part of ONE larger cell, ran by ONE specific operative that reports to TIM.

 

And in ME2, a cell (since Cerberus by then becomes an outright terrorist organization instead of rogue Alliance black ops) can consist of even Oleg's fleet*. There may be other operatives within this chain of command, but the point is that the people with Oleg don't know much about Shepard's reconstruction while it is happening. Information is kept need-to-know, and only TIM, being as reclusive as he is, 'needs to know'.

 

We face Cerberus a lot in the last two games, but nothing we see is outright illogical for them. They have several facilities - so what? Alliance has dozens, and corporations have dozens. They have a couple fleets - so what? Alliance has several (even after the initial Reaper invasion), and Cerberus' fleets appear built more for specialized missions, only able to defend Omega after it is refit to do so, and only able to fully capture Omega through guile and not only force.

 

We saw pretty much the full extent of them by the end of ME3, with maybe some ships and cells handled by others. However, I do consider it a weakness of the game that they rely so much on Cerberus being around for things, instead of Reapers or heck, even some Geth or evenn remnant Collectors.

 

 

*Cells can vary in size. TIM can have one tiny cell that works on Shepard very secretly, and another that works clandestinely on experiments and research, and another larger one that waited in the shadows before striking with military might against Omega. Each have different levels of clearance and largely are not aware of what the other cells are doing. In total, there are only around 100-150 operatives that really know much of Cerberus' doings, and even they are restricted by the cell structure, allowing Cerberus to always turn to another 'head' to pick up the slack. This is how Cerberus' finances can be crippled yet still continue - they have many backup sources of revenue, and all that did was push them into more drastic plans (like huskifying troops instead of just recruiting and training a lot?)

[TheOneTrueBioticGod]

 

We face Cerberus a lot in the last two games, but nothing we see is outright illogical for them. They have several facilities - so what? Alliance has dozens, and corporations have dozens. They have a couple fleets - so what? Alliance has several (even after the initial Reaper invasion), and Cerberus' fleets appear built more for specialized missions, only able to defend Omega after it is refit to do so, and only able to fully capture Omega through guile and not only force.

 

 

They have massive deep-space space stations that would require ridiculous amounts of eezo and engineering/manufacturing capabilities to produce, not to mention move (Cronos, apparantly.) They have a couple fleets? The Alliance has six, before the invasion. Six fleets. Cerberus, somehow, managed to build a dreadnought. Admittedly, they seemed to forget to install KBs on the dreadnought, so this is somewhat believable. And they have all those cruisers. 

[SwobyJ]

Cerberus dreadnoughts are not the same as other ones, like you indicated.

 

Their state in ME2 was preparing for war (so 1-2 years of it), while Shepard did other stuff. That's enough to build a dreadnought and some cruisers though their contacts and various corporations that they *own*. They then make up for numbers by using the most experimental of tech that even salarians wouldn't just embrace.

 

Meanwhile the Alliance couldn't really bolster itself a ton, because there was no war to be on alert about. The geth? Put down. The batarians? Arrival wrecked em even more I guess, though there were concerns about them. Anything else? No overt threat to rally over. So while they might have otherwise built up more fleets, Hackett probably had his hands full working with what he had, and more secretly learning of what he could (aka Crucible plans).

 

If the Alliance was any weaker and Cerberus any stronger, I'd be with the critics. But as it is, they sit rightttt on the edge of belief.

 

I think the (mistold) point that Bioware may have been trying to make about Cerberus is that is isn't necessarily about how many guns you have and how hard they hit - what can also matter is what technologies you pursue and what tactics you employ, both on the field and off the field of battle. Seeing Cerberus be so successful might have had a point, but seeing Shepard push through so hard and break any of Cerberus' successes kinda made that point null, in place of the message that fancy tech doesn't help much when you're corrupt inside and lacking allies to unify with.

[TheOneTrueBioticGod]

Cerberus dreadnoughts are not the same as other ones, like you indicated.

 

Their state in ME2 was preparing for war (so 1-2 years of it), while Shepard did other stuff. That's enough to build a dreadnought and some cruisers though their contacts and various corporations that they *own*. They then make up for numbers by using the most experimental of tech that even salarians wouldn't just embrace.

 

Meanwhile the Alliance couldn't really bolster itself a ton, because there was no war to be on alert about. The geth? Put down. The batarians? Arrival wrecked em even more I guess. Anything else? No overt threat to rally over. So while they might have otherwise built up more fleets, Hackett probably had his hands full working with what he had, and more secretly learning of what he could (aka Crucible plans).

 

If the Alliance was any weaker and Cerberus any stronger, I'd be with the critics. But as it is, they sit rightttt on the edge of belief.

 

I think the (mistold) point that Bioware may have been trying to make about Cerberus is that is isn't necessarily about how many guns you have and how hard they hit - what can also matter is what technologies you pursue and what tactics you employ, both on the field and off the field of battle. Seeing Cerberus be so successful might have had a point, but seeing Shepard push through so hard and break any of Cerberus' successes kinda made that point null, in place of the message that fancy tech doesn't help much when you're corrupt inside and lacking allies to unify with.

I was insulting them, just to clarify. 

There is no way that a "secret" operation can build a dreadnought. It takes two years for Turian shipyards to build one, in the open. 

The Alliance had been building up its fleets in line with the Treaty of Farixen after being given a spot on the Council: They had built a new dreadnought or two in those 3 years, plus whatever support ships to go with them. 
 

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

Cerberus quality control? Well they only QC was on Shepard. The Normandy even lacked safety standards.

[KaiserShep]

Cerberus quality control? Well they only QC was on Shepard. The Normandy even lacked safety standards.

 

Cerberus Engineer 1: OK, so looking at this heat regulation system, if we ramped up the system with a cooling pipe, we would probably prevent the venting of plasma into the engineering deck.

 

Cerberus Engineer 2: What are we, made of money? Forget it, I'm sure the ship will do fine.

 

Cerberus Engineer 1: But...yeah, I guess you're right. OK so what about the forward battery? I hear the turians developed this...

 

Cerberus Engineer 2: Dafuq I just tell you?

 

Cerberus Engineer 1:

[Ryriena]

I was insulting them, just to clarify.

There is no way that a "secret" operation can build a dreadnought. It takes two years for Turian shipyards to build one, in the open.

The Alliance had been building up its fleets in line with the Treaty of Farixen after being given a spot on the Council: They had built a new dreadnought or two in those 3 years, plus whatever support ships to go with them.

In other words, they where an alliance group that supposedly went rouge. I would classify them still as an alliance black ops group. It's kind of like the Meijn hidden that became Al Qaeda later on to make it a terror group to putt off blame of the Alliance when they blow people up.

[SwobyJ]

I was insulting them, just to clarify. 

There is no way that a "secret" operation can build a dreadnought. It takes two years for Turian shipyards to build one, in the open. 

The Alliance had been building up its fleets in line with the Treaty of Farixen after being given a spot on the Council: They had built a new dreadnought or two in those 3 years, plus whatever support ships to go with them. 
 

 

Cerberus' 'secret' operations are done throughout several human corporations. The construction isn't done in the open, but at their secret bases, using materials they've gathered from businesses and military, blueprints and resources from aliens, and their higher knowledge of Reaper tech.

 

Making one dreadnought over 1-3+ years was entirely believable to me. If they made 2+ instead, I'd be right with you.

[Ryriena]

Cerberus' 'secret' operations are done throughout several Alliance corporations. It isn't done in the open, but at their secret base, using materials they've gathered from human businesses and military, and their higher knowledge of Reaper tech.

Making one dreadnought over 1-3+ years was entirely believable to me. If they made 2+ instead, I'd be right with you.

I agree on that as it were we're still with the Alliance just one of their black ops projects. That they say went rouge in reality their still operating within the Alliance. Kind of like Al Qaeda, with the CIA.