Guest_alleyd_*
The role Cerberus played in ME3 was controversial, partly due to the sudden increase in their force potential and numbers. Considering that the Batarians where experimenting with Reaper Tech and had succumb to indoctrination. Would they have been a more suitable candidate for the role Cerberus played in ME3?
They basically were. Still, BW wanted Cerberus to be bad. That was likely always the intent, but they failed miserably IMO.
Sometimes, being a super-ego rational type is hard to balance with life.
Yes they would have, but I get the impression that Bioware tends to forget that the batarians even exist. I mean they were supposed to be humanity's biggest rival but they didn't even appear in ME1 except in dlc.
Guest_alleyd_*
They basically were. Still, BW wanted Cerberus to be bad. That was likely always the intent, but they failed miserably IMO.
Sometimes, being a super-ego rational type is hard to balance with life.
I agree that shoe-horning Cerberus into the role of sub-villain was more a fail than success.
Guest_alleyd_*
Yes they would have, but I get the impression that Bioware tends to forget that the batarians even exist. I mean they were supposed to be humanity's biggest rival but they didn't even appear in ME1 except in dlc.
I suspect that there was some focus group figures on the DLC that suggested that the Batarians were less viable enemy option than the narrative suggested they were. Cannot let the story get in the way of budgeting for the areas in ME1 that were popular with the fans and personal pet creations of the writers after-all
There should have been multiple indoctrinated forces that would be used for filler combat.
It would leave Cerberus to only appear on their plot relevant missions which would be better for the story as well as add a little more enemy variety.
There should have been multiple indoctrinated forces that would be used for filler combat.
It would leave Cerberus to only appear on their plot relevant missions which would be better for the story as well as add a little more enemy variety.
If anything I think indoctrination was under utilized outside of Saren and maybe Arrival DLC. The Batarians would have been a good source to use for another indoctrinated army, not only were they hit straight out of the gate, but they had access to a reaper corpse even before they got hit. Some indoctrinated STG would have been a good idea for the Sur Kesh mission and the genophage arc in general. Indoctrination is most effective when combined with manipulation, that is why Saren was such a good pawn for Sovereign. It used Saren's own ego and politics to it's advantage. Same thing with TIM.
If I'm being completely honest, I think the Batarians would have made a less interesting indoctrinated force than Cerberus. It's not that Cerberus was great in ME3, but the problem with the Batarians is that we're already predisposed to dislike them; they're antagonistic towards humans, they're already mooks that we kill en masse without the need for indoctrination, and are generally presented with few redeeming qualities at all. Indoctrinating them would just be giving us one more excuse to kill enemies we already don't like, which doesn't make for very compelling drama (IMO, this was the same mistake made in Arrival: It's as if the game is telling you, "Man, it's sad that 300,000 lives have to be lost to prevent the Reapers from showing up, but don't feel too bad, because hey, they're just Batarians.").
I've mentioned this before, but I think it would be better if we had to fight a decent number of indoctrinated forces from groups and races we actually care about, so that there are emotional stakes in having to fight and kill them. Javik has that little bit on Thessia where he talks about having to face former friends and comrades, but yet we never have to experience this for ourselves, spending almost all of our time fighting against enemies the game has tried its darndest to de-humanize. If you're trying to play up the idea that war is hell (as ME3 obviously is), that's exactly not the way to do it.
Sort of.
The problem with Cerberus being an indoctrinated isn't with the idea itself, it was with the execution. It is pretty much revealed at Mars that Cerberus are indoctrinated mooks for the Reapers. A lot of the potential for having Cerberus be indoctrinated is squandered by revealing it within the first half hour of the game. Instead the Illusive Man being indoctrinated should have been a twist, and it should have been revealed late in the game when the player had hopefully, come to trust Cerberus at least as an asset against the Reapers. There should have been an alliance of sorts with Cerberus initially, with them seemingly aiding in the war effort. The betrayal should have come at Thessia and as a surprise, with the Coup shifted to after Thessia in the timeline.
The problem then is that having the indoctrination angle come as a surprise betrayal, is that Cerberus couldn't be used in prior missions as the mooks you have to blast through. I think indoctrinated Batarians would have worked well as the replacements.
Also having indoctrinated Batarians factor into the plot to a greater extent would also provide an opportunity to give a better explanation to how the Reapers arrived in the Milky Way. Having them simply hit the accelerator and coast into the galaxy at conventional FTL rendered the plot of ME1 and ME2 nonsensical. The Reapers didn't need the Sovereign or human Reaper plans if they weren't trapped in dark space, and the former ended up spoiling the element of surprise. And it is that element of surprise that is arguably the Reapers' greatest advantage.
Instead you could have the scientists, engineers, and military and government officials who were exposed to the Leviathan of Dis, involved in a top secret project to build a mass effect relay. The plans of course are coming from the Reapers, but the unindoctrinated don't know that. The Batarians manage to keep the project shielded in secrecy, only revealing it to the galaxy at large upon completion...with typical Batarian boasting about the Hegemony's superiority. The relay could be in a remote system, intended to link to the Batarian home system. When the Batarians activate it and attempt to align it to that system, instead it aligns to a point in dark space, where the Reapers have a relay that they normally use to jump to the Citadel. They jump through into Batarian space & the cycle begins, and without rendering the Sovereign or human Reaper plots as being unnecessary.
No, I don't think so.
Not to turn this into an ME3 Ending discussion, but the entire point of what TIM / Cerberus was doing was attempting to find a way to control the Reapers, which provides moral and ethical considerations for one of the choices of the ME3 endings. Though their discovery of FTL travel happened with less information than other competing civilizations, the Batarians are presented as more organized, humanoid Krogans. Did the Batarians have the scientific focus / resources to even begin to approach the scientific examination of indoctrination? The ground-work for Cerberus was already laid in Mass Effect 2, like the mission summary after collecting the Reaper IFF ("Will use team's health records for comparisons against husks encountered on Reaper for possible insight into indoctrination and husk conversion process"), or the argument that is had with TIM about destroying the Collector base (take Miranda as a squad-mate to the final boss, TIM sounds much more desperate to go down a path of control, even at that stage).
Another problem is that if writers are trying to adhere to a classic three-act / trilogy format, you just don't introduce an entirely new arch-enemy in the third act (assuming ME3 is Act III of the Space Opera). The Batarians were barely in the previous two games. Some Blue Suns mercs and two DLC (Bring Down the Sky and Arrival) don't count as significant alongside the monster role of Cerberus. If you do Kahoku's side-mission (and others) in ME1, Cerberus was a shadowy presence, focused on control and manipulation even then. Yes, the Batarians could have been indoctrinated, and it would have been an interesting route to go, but the back story just isn't there IMO.
The Batarians really wouldn't come across as a different faction from the Reapers however, just as the Collectors or the indoctrinated Krogan from previous games didn't feel like they belonged to separate faction from the Reapers.
Cerberus sometimes feels like a separate faction in ME3 because they were given this weird 'lets control the Reapers' angle, even though they are indoctrinated. It makes them stand out compared to previous examples of indoctrination we've run into, who tend to be more of the Saren variety. Another element that factors into Cerberus feeling somehow separate from the Reapers despite being their mooks, is that characters in the game act mystified over what Cerberus' goals are even though it was painfully obvious at Mars that they were indoctrinated.
The Batarians were turned into Cannibals weren't they? Indoctrinating them for ground troops would be pointless as there was a more efficient way to use them.
The Batarians were turned into Cannibals weren't they? Indoctrinating them for ground troops would be pointless as there was a more efficient way to use them.
One would think that indoctrinated batarian troopers would more effective than sluggish mutant creatures.
I Certainly had more problems downing Balak's thugs than dealing with cannibals.
One would think that indoctrinated batarian troopers would more effective than sluggish mutant creatures.
I Certainly had more problems downing Balak's thugs than dealing with cannibals.
Why? The cannibals are augmented while only the very most elite Batarians (like 0.0001%) would be as efficient and once you do rapid indoctrination on them that would drop as well. You are getting game play and lore crossed over. Human Husks were meant to be deadly from a lore point of view.
Lorewise I'd think indoctrinated troops would be superior because they still have their mental faculties. Creatures like the Cannibals are something more akin to husks. They are basically animals that know how to shoot.
Lorewise I'd think indoctrinated troops would be superior because they still have their mental faculties. Creatures like the Cannibals are something more akin to husks. They are basically animals that know how to shoot.
The vast, vast majority of Batarians that the reapers would have captured would be civilians.
And I don't even agree with that lorewise comparison anyway. As I said human husks are meant to be quite deadly from a lore perspective.
Guest_alleyd_*
Sort of.
The problem with Cerberus being an indoctrinated isn't with the idea itself, it was with the execution. It is pretty much revealed at Mars that Cerberus are indoctrinated mooks for the Reapers. A lot of the potential for having Cerberus be indoctrinated is squandered by revealing it within the first half hour of the game. Instead the Illusive Man being indoctrinated should have been a twist, and it should have been revealed late in the game when the player had hopefully, come to trust Cerberus at least as an asset against the Reapers. There should have been an alliance of sorts with Cerberus initially, with them seemingly aiding in the war effort. The betrayal should have come at Thessia and as a surprise, with the Coup shifted to after Thessia in the timeline.
The problem then is that having the indoctrination angle come as a surprise betrayal, is that Cerberus couldn't be used in prior missions as the mooks you have to blast through. I think indoctrinated Batarians would have worked well as the replacements.
Also having indoctrinated Batarians factor into the plot to a greater extent would also provide an opportunity to give a better explanation to how the Reapers arrived in the Milky Way. Having them simply hit the accelerator and coast into the galaxy at conventional FTL rendered the plot of ME1 and ME2 nonsensical. The Reapers didn't need the Sovereign or human Reaper plans if they weren't trapped in dark space, and the former ended up spoiling the element of surprise. And it is that element of surprise that is arguably the Reapers' greatest advantage.
Instead you could have the scientists, engineers, and military and government officials who were exposed to the Leviathan of Dis, involved in a top secret project to build a mass effect relay. The plans of course are coming from the Reapers, but the unindoctrinated don't know that. The Batarians manage to keep the project shielded in secrecy, only revealing it to the galaxy at large upon completion...with typical Batarian boasting about the Hegemony's superiority. The relay could be in a remote system, intended to link to the Batarian home system. When the Batarians activate it and attempt to align it to that system, instead it aligns to a point in dark space, where the Reapers have a relay that they normally use to jump to the Citadel. They jump through into Batarian space & the cycle begins, and without rendering the Sovereign or human Reaper plots as being unnecessary.
I cannot find any disagreement in any points in this summary. Sounds like a plot I could have enjoyed.
Having the Batarians play the part of the early game brute force attacks in a plot centred on a Human-Batarian war would have given more credence to the reluctance of the Council races to get involved. The Reaper influence being kept hidden and having to be uncovered to gain Council support for Earth's Defence. Possibly having Shepard act along with Cerberus in the early game; unaware that they had also were indoctrinated.
The Cannibals were a aesthetic and gameplay disaster IMO. Most of the augmented creatures looked rather silly, but the cannibals were probably the silliest. They were weaker than the Batarians in previous games, fodder for biotics. Facing an enemy with the stats and capabilities of the Batarian M/P model would have been far more challenging
I agree that shoe-horning Cerberus into the role of sub-villain was more a fail than success.
Shoe-horning Cerberus into the role of allies in ME2 was an even bigger fail since they were perfectly good side-villains in ME1.
I don't think the Batarians could have filled the role of the "inside man". There were too many groups and locations that Batarians would never have been able to work their way into. Humans can go almost anywhere and deal with almost anyone. Not to mention the Arrival DLC. Batarians had too many limitations by ME3 to make for a good boogie man.
The thing about Cerberus in 2 was that you could never tell whether they were good or bad, whether you could trust them or not... That's what made them interesting. Going from that to straight up bad (or good) would be a step down for me. So yes, I would rather have something else being the indoctrinated force. Though it wouldn't necessarily have to be Batarians...
Shoe-horning Cerberus into the role of allies in ME2 was an even bigger fail since they were perfectly good side-villains in ME1.
They were underdeveloped enough in ME1 and left shady enough in ME2 for the first change to work IMO. Perhaps they shouldn't have been retconed in the first place but if it already happened, it shouldn't happen once again. ME3 goes with the whole "You were a tool Shep! I used you! Tap Kelly Chambers, we need sympathetic faces to fool Shep!" sillyness to make TIM/Cerberus seem more evil. It was completly unnecessary, they were doing evil enough things with the indoctrination plot already.
There should have been multiple indoctrinated forces that would be used for filler combat.
It would leave Cerberus to only appear on their plot relevant missions which would be better for the story as well as add a little more enemy variety.
Totally agree.
It turned out that it was like 45% Cerberus, 40% Reaper, 15% Geth by the end of all DLC (not including CAT6, but they're almost Cerberus stand-ins... almost).
Whereas I would have preferred something like 25% Cerberus, 35% Reaper, 20% Geth, 20% Indoctrinated Forces. The IF could have been often mixed in with Reaper forces too.
No, the batarians are too easy to hate, there is much more drama with a fight between two human leaders (Shep and TIM) with different approaches of the Reapers and who have worked together previously. Besides, I think that Bioware didn't want that an entire alien organic race was the enemy. As it is stated throughout the trilogy, there are bad and good people in every race. And while we have multiple examples of good humans, starting by Shepard, batarians are always either terrorists, slavers, thugs...
I don't think the Batarians could have filled the role of the "inside man". There were too many groups and locations that Batarians would never have been able to work their way into. Humans can go almost anywhere and deal with almost anyone. Not to mention the Arrival DLC. Batarians had too many limitations by ME3 to make for a good boogie man.
I agree that the Batarians couldn't be used as a Fifth column. The Hegemony is basically North Korea in space, so the Batarians were never going to bring down the Council from the inside.
But I think they could have been used as a brute force indoctrinated faction. They could have accounted for some of the ground troops you encounter on missions. At Mars for example you'd run into Batarians instead of Cerberus. Ditto for Sur'Kesh.
Also the Batarians might make more sense. The Hegemony fielded a space fleet and had an army. If Batarian ships and troops attacked Council worlds it wouldn't strain suspension of disbelief, because they wouldn't have been conjured out of thin air. Cerberus fielding a fleet and an army in ME3 never made much sense, because prior to ME3 they were a small organization organized into isolated cells. They weren't an army.
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