265 réponses à ce sujet

[Dr. Peter Venkman]

gethsemani87 wrote...

I personally feel that the justification for working with Cerberus provided in ME2 is satisfactory enough, even for a Paragon Shepard. Let's face it, who else is going to help you? Your mission can be summed up in the following statement:

"Hey, I am going through a Mass Relay that leads to an unknown place from which no ship has ever returned, despite hundreds of ships having used it over the years. I am doing this because I am fighting a race that is abducting human colonists and I believe that these abductions have something to do with the Reapers. You know, the boogeymen who's plan I claim to have thwarted two years. Nevermind that you have found no evidence that Sovereign was actually not just a fancy Geth-ship, or that you have no jurisdiction or care for the Terminus systems where this is happening. Also, please forget that I was supposedly killed two years ago and make my reappearance now, in a ship registered to a pro-human organization widely considered to be terrorists. Also, I would like for you to re-instate me as a SPECTRE/Marine Commander, hand me an expensive military ship and some of the best soldiers and provide me with unlimited funding for this mission. Oh yeah, I know all indications point to this being a suicide mission, but come on? I took down Saren and stopped the Reapers (who you don't believe in anyway, I know), remember?"

Would you listen to Shepard if s/he came to you and asked this? As it is Cerberus at least acknowledges that you are right and are ready to trust in your intuition to save humanity. Not only that, they trust you so implicitly that they give you free reign to do whatever you like and whatever it takes to complete this mission. Even if it means they lose a gigantic fortune in the process (4 Billions for Project Lazarus and God knows how much for the SR-2).

Shepard is back from the dead and all out of options in a galaxy that at best thought s/he was slightly unstable at best and dangerously psychotic at worst. But you'd rather turn down the offer of near unlimited help and free reign because the organization offering it to you has a bad rep?

Hahahaha

[hawat333]

You have some very valid points, but -as it used to be when it comes to detailed reasoning- you miss out one unquestionable fact. The bigger picture. The real meaning of the Reaper threat.

[RandomPot322]

Oh, 'nother thought. Is stealing from the dead Paragon or Renegade?

Or hacking wall safes, especially places like the colony being invaded by the collectors.

[Fishy]

The whole thing a Full Paragon it's just a stupid zealot while a full renegade it's just a frigging thug with the brain power of a frog.

For instance i'm not going to leave civilian die because of some idiot revenge..But i'm not going to be nice to some batarian thug that pointed their gun on a Civil either.

Modifié par Suprez30, 01 février 2010 - 01:24 .

[Risto44]

I like Cerberus.Also the council just pisses me off in this game and of course,the Cerberus badge looks awesome on my uniform xD

[Chrisimo79]

Anyone who would throw the chance to save all those colonists and defeat the Collectors away - just because he doesn't want to work for Cerberus - isn't really paragon. So I don't get all the complaining about working for Cerberus. Working for Cerberus IS the paragon choice in this case.

Modifié par Chrisimo79, 01 février 2010 - 01:35 .

[Wynne]

You died because of the Council and the Alliance's decisions.

Really think about that.

After all you'd been through, the Council still was sending you after geth. GETH. After all the ignoring they had done in the first game, after the catastrophic consequences of all those idiotic decisions, grounding the bloody Normandy in the eleventh hour... they learned nothing. NOTHING.

So you died. You have a memory of the heat leeching from your body, struggling to close the hole in your suit, suffocating as your body caves in on you from the pressure. You have a memory of panic and utter helplessness. And if not for Cerberus, that memory would have been your last memory of anything.

Yes, Cerberus was responsible for horrible messes. Researchers getting killed after Rachni, husks, etc. got out. Admiral Kahoku and his men. Some of the people in the organization allowed absolutely monstrous things to happen, and it was enraging. But they did this only because they get the fact that the Reapers are out there.
Nobody else does. Everybody else gets so scared of what will happen when the public panics that they refuse to let the truth out and deal with the political panic as the whole galaxy demands that SOMETHING BE DONE. Everybody else has a job to do, a nice safe everyday job like patrolling or guarding, and don't want to deal with anything else.

Every awful thing Cerberus did (and those things were awful) was because they believed if they didn't, something vastly worse would happen. Like, say, the extinction of all organic life and the future extinction of other species when the Reapers decide they need to also die--and those innocent future races will be just as unsuspecting as the current races were.

Shepard--even the most Paragon Shepard--realizes early on that (s)he has learned from the events of ME1. Those events taught any non-retarded Shepard that red tape is constantly going to be in the way of any action vitally needed to save the galaxy--and even the most Paragon Shepard trespassed the Alliance's and the Council's decisions by stealing back the Normandy.

Shepard knows that what must be done must be done. There's no good whining about how you're too Paragon to accept that a greater good exists and being all emo over how you would NEVER work for Cerberus even if it means the extinction of all life because the universe must move around YOUR unreasonable black-and-white principles. Handing over the Normandy and a bunch of people who may not have seen Cerberus' dark side to a bunch of mid-level idiots who will say, "Okay, thanks, your wacky concerns about the nonexistent Reapers are noted, we'll discuss them next year in meetings and then maybe we'll see what the committee decides" is the absolute extreme of irrational. After which the committee decides they're too busy to handle myths and Shepard is stuck sitting on his or her finely toned military buttocks for the events of the entire damned game.

Meanwhile, more people disappear. More people die in those pods and are melted down. And by the time anybody acts, that Human Reaper is raining destruction all over the galaxy. It knows our weaknesses and exactly how to destroy us because its organic side is distilled from our own essences.

Hell, the whole reason nobody intercepts you during ME2 is that deep down the ultimate leaders of the galaxy know damned well what you're doing is probably necessary. Even they know, they just don't have time or resources to deal with it.

Cerberus has the resources and won't get in Shepard's way when (s)he has to get things done.

Cerberus can save millions or even billions of lives.  The Alliance and the Council may not kill people through twisted experiments, but they will kill entire species through inaction and overcaution, and if you had obeyed their orders--in contrast to working for Cerberus, which is hands-off enough not to give you orders--then that would've already happened when Sovereign sent the signal and summoned all its buddies. It's easier to change an organization like Cerberus for the better than to get the Alliance or the Council to budge one single inch even for necessity's sake.

And finally, by working for Cerberus, you can gain information that will allow you to dismantle the entire organization--which a black and white Moron Shepard could not do because that Shepard turned over the Normandy SR2, which has probably been wiped of all evidence of illegal activity by EDI and/or your crew the moment you handed it over--the Illusive Man isn't stupid.

No Cerberus=Nothing gets done until it's too late and Cerberus remains in power. Also, you're dead.

Cerberus=You can save all organic life in the galaxy, then take them out later when the Reapers are dead and they're no longer necessary, and you are not dead because they brought you back to life.

The choice is incredibly crystal clear, and that is why Shepard works for them in Mass Effect 2.

Modifié par Wynne, 01 février 2010 - 01:50 .

[mcvxiii]

Garuda One wrote...

Though, on a side note. The engineers, Dr. Chakwas, Joker and anyone from the previous game besides Kaiden or Ashely are only even inside the Cerberus vessel is because YOU are leading this mission, not the Illusive Man.

Dr. Chakwas, Garrus and Tali are there solely for Shepard. Joker joined Cerberus so he could pilot again, he says so in the first dialouge you have with him, and joined up when the Alliance kicked him to the curb before Shepard's resurrection. "At least they let me fly again". The engineers, like Joker, became disillusioned with the Alliance and are there to work with the technology on the new Normandy.



I have never saw the paragon and renegade options as being pure or evil, just a different mindset in order to achieve the same goal with the renegrade being a bit of an arse. In this game working with Cerberus is a necessary evil -- a deal with the devil so to speak -- to accomplish your goal, no other organization is willing to help. The Council's isn't exactly without it's blemishes or making questionable decisions, genophage anyone?

[Nomcookie]

Honestly, after a while, I began to wish I could pull a Saren and try to wipe out the council myself. Yes, (my) Sherpard is mortified by what Cerberus has done in the first game, but the idiocy of the council is unbelievable. Those fools have ignored Shepard's warnings not once or twice, but three times. On top of that, despite the fact that they were almost slaughtered first-hand by a Reaper, they refuse to acknowledge their existence.



I'm completely torn between going anti-Cerberus in-game just because of the horrors they've done, and supporting Cerberus just to spite the asinine council.



Personal wish for ME3: Wipe out the council with the aid of Legion and an army of Geth. Then turn around and crush Cerberus. Darth Shepard: Emperor of the Milky Way.

[TheLostGenius]

What entity is more dangerous? The Reapers or Cereberus? I'd side with Cereberus. I hope they give us an option in ME3 to commit alien genocides against non-humans.

[RandomPot322]

TheLostGenius wrote...

What entity is more dangerous? The Reapers or Cereberus? I'd side with Cereberus. I hope they give us an option in ME3 to commit alien genocides against non-humans.

Mean like wipe out all non-humans? or just one particular species. Cause i might just take out the hanaar. freaky little bastards.
Also, I'd keep the volus, just pushing that little one around when he thought he had super biotic powers, was awesome

[Ozymandias23]

To the OP I completely agree with you. I despised Cerberus. Bioware's 'story' reasons for why you had to work for them had more holes than a sieve. The whole concept of Shep dying, Cerberus and Shep's synthetic upgrades not to mention the treatment of Wrex, Liara, Kaidan/Ashley made this game a fairly hateful experience for me.

[Wynne]

MikeFL25 wrote...
When I play Mass Effect, I ALWAYS go Paragon, because it is what I believe to be the right thing to do in the game world. I had 1 renegade playthrough, only to see what it was like. I find it incredibly hard to believe that the second Paragon Shepard got his ship, he didn't rip off all the Cerberus logos and get re-instated into the Alliance.

As far as the game having a "dark" feel, I think it could have been done better by making the task of the suicide mission more daunting, instead of artificially darkening the game by forcing you to work with Cerberus.

Now, this is reasonable. But there is a clear answer to it.

The moment you denounce Cerberus and get back into the Alliance and the Spectres, you are again under their control. Their rules. Their political restrictions. You saw in ME1 that even though Spectres are SUPPOSED to be beyond red tape, they are anything but. The Council rules a Spectre's actions; the Council can ground your ship and order you to do as it says and you can do nothing unless you can find a way to blatantly disobey and circumvent their orders and their authority. In which case you may be disciplined or even fired, which can get in the way when the next major threat rolls around and they are STILL unwilling to believe it until it's in their face killing them.

It's not artificial darkness but a realistic universe wherein the good guys don't always step up to the plate. They're afraid of panic from the masses. They would rather pretend the big threats don't exist. They won't act without absolute proof, and they have no absolute proof that Sovereign was more than an isolated incident. Just a big enemy warship allied with Saren and the geth, and all that remains is to eliminate the geth, right? As far as anyone can actually prove, that's the extent of it.

I actually sort of wish they'd done that as a non-standard game over, though. Turn the Normandy over to the Council. Cutscene: You're ordered to go hunt geth again. You do as they say. Eight months later, the Reapers overwhelm the galaxy. Death.

Epic oops.

MikeFL25 wrote...
Michelle, you are right, the Spectres
can do anything. Shepard wouldn't even need to go to the Council. Why
wasn't there an option for Shepard to say something like, "It is my
decision that, utilizing my status as a Spectre, I declare this vessel
Council property, and henceforth this mission will proceed under
Alliance and Council support."

This way, the Council wouldn't
even need to believe Shepard (they didn't in ME1 either), but since he
is a Spectre they would have to support him.  Shepard would no longer
be with Cerberus, and then your ME1 team members wouldn't need to flip
out.

Except they DON'T have to support Shepard, and Shepard is NOT free to do whatever. You're going back into unreasonable territory again. The Spectres are the arms of the Council. They are RULED by the Council. Your authority goes up to the point where they decide they don't like your haircut and say, "No, you can't do that. You can't go into the Terminus Systems because it's bad and wrong and politically dangerous. Bad little Shepard-child." Anyone who thinks otherwise is kidding themselves.

KnightofPhoenix wrote...
Full renegade is a short sighted ****.
Full paragon is a naive idealist who isn't good at anything.

A mix of both, in other words, moderation is the best imo. Moderation in anything is usually always the best.

Wow. I agree with you so wholeheartedly that it's practically the theme of my entire existence. I'm not being sarcastic, just in case it wasn't clear; that is my personal view of the universe. Balance in all things. Too far in either direction and you're on a sure path to dangerous assumptions.

Pragmatism, as ashmiranda3waymm was saying. Even the most Paragon Shepard has to be a pragmatist after the events of ME1. After all, even a 100% Paragon has seen the effects of following orders like a good little scout instead of doing what you have to do. It gets the universe destroyed.

KnightofPhoenix wrote...
Keep in mind that TIM will revive Shepard even
if he was maximum paragon and absolutely abhors Cerberus. And keep in
mind that TIM did NOT attempt to brainwash Shepard in project Lazarus
(and he could have). He in fact made sure that Shepard remains Shepard,
regardless of his beliefs.

I wish people would stop looking at TIM as a "villain". And start looking at him more like an anti-hero.

Yeah, seriously. TIM is not a villain. He's a realistic, sane man consumed by fear of the inevitable. He's basically the only person besides Shepard who really gets it. His real problem is that he's willing to go overboard to get it, but even he refuses to let Miranda implant Shepard with a control chip to ensure you do what he says. Miranda tells you that--if it had been up to her, you would have had no free will and while she turns around later, it's TIM that wanted you free in the first place, not her. He believes in Shepard exactly as Shepard is and won't let her compromise your free will because he knows in his gut that you know best. That it's Shepard that can keep the galaxy safe, not him or anyone else.

It can be said that TIM actually protects himself from himself later in the game by ensuring you have that freedom, to ignore him when he asks you to bring back the Reaper tech. Ironic, but fitting, and very much in character for him I think. You're his failsafe, you're what can keep him from going too far because he himself doesn't know where the line must be drawn.

It's not that he's cartoon eeeeeeevil, he's not Mr. Burns as some people paint him to be. At the end, his main problem is that he wants to go too far, and that out of a brief madness born of panic; he thinks using their tech against them may be the only way. He doesn't get what you get because he hasn't seen the effects of indoctrination in the field like Shepard has. He's a suit who sits in his chair and smokes and plays chess with his universe.

TIM is canny enough to realize what the Council doesn't, but he is not wise enough or noble enough to realize what many Shepards do--that getting involved with Reaper tech may very well be as sure an end to our existence as if we had let Sovereign send the signal. That it may be even worse than getting wiped out, because you may be strengthening the enemy's ranks rather than your own, making it even easier for the galaxy to die and the next batch of sentient species to be taken apart.

Reaper tech is a great big Pandora's box you probably just don't want to open. I'm not even sure if my most Renegade Shepards will hand it over to the Illusive Man. Trusting it may be even worse than giving up a potentially valuable tool for survival. It really is a grey choice; it's the kind of thing you can see both the good and the bad of, and that's why it's perfect as an ending to ME2.

[SnowHeart1]

I understand the OPs point even if I don't entirely agree. This is a fundamental argument about the nature of CRPGs. The writers necessarily have to restrict your ability to make certain choices in order to actually make the game and present a cohesive plot. That's just a real-world fact about making and designing these kinds of games. As for in-game, a pretty fair explanation was put forward: the Council was back to its old ways and taking a cruise down da Nile. Now, if you were Paragon, however, you were made a Spectre... just using Cerberus resources (without having to buy your own guns). In that sense, I really don't see a huge difference between ME1 and ME2. All you have to do is rationalize it to yourself that you're using Cerberus, but you can't mention it too blatantly because this frakking AI is watching everything you do and who knows what other kind of "blocks" it has installed.



It's a game. Sorry you let this ruin it for you.

[fchopin]

To the OP.



I said something similar over 6 months ago and got no answers, nobody cared.



Very simple really, it is what I call bad writing.

[mcvxiii]

Ozymandias23 wrote...

To the OP I completely agree with you. I despised Cerberus. Bioware's 'story' reasons for why you had to work for them had more holes than a sieve. The whole concept of Shep dying, Cerberus and Shep's synthetic upgrades not to mention the treatment of Wrex, Liara, Kaidan/Ashley made this game a fairly hateful experience for me.

I disagree with you. Shepard has been becoming more than a ****** sapien since the first game when his brain is altered to understand the prothean beacons. By the end of ME1 Shepard is something more than human. This game continues in that trajectory this time it is his physical body that has been altered and it echos the conclusion of this game. I don't think that the reasons given for working with (note: not for) Cerberus at this juncture has "more holes than a sieve", your options at this point are to work with Cerberus to stop the reaper threat or not and do nothing.

[Zynnix]

First of all I must say that what a game this is that it can inspire such a massive in-depth post. That's probably the longest post I've ever seen/bothered to read. Kudos to the OP.



And now my thoughts:



I hate Cerberus too, because I read the books, and I know that they've done evil more atrocious things behind the scenes, with the ascension program, etc. I came into the game saying: "I'm not working for this demon!" But I also understood the gravity of the situation. It was a very immediate threat. There was a time concern, and the time it would have taken for the council/alliance to wade through the politics to actually do something about it, it would be too late.



Mind you, I still don't understand why a council spectre is restricted from doing missions in the Terminus systems, that's a little silly to me, but nonetheless, working with Cerberus was the only option. I didn't like it, but I worked with them to get the job done.



And if you haven't seen the paragon ending yet, I think you'll rather like it. I know it was quite satisying for me. Let's just say, I made a few enemies, and I don't think Cerberus will appreciate it. Hehehe.

[Glorfindel2]

I agree 100% with the original poster.  I've been a huge BioWare fan for over ten years, and I have never had an experience as unpleasant as being forced to work for Cerberus this game.  The point of a roleplaying game is to be able to make meaningful choices that are consistent with your character's persona, and being railroaded into doing Cerberus's dirty work just eviscerates that.  The game is supposed to allow to choose to be a "paragon" who plays by the rules, or a "renegade" who does whatever's necessary to get the job done.  Working for Cerberus is renegade by definition.  Just look at the dialogues:  Most of the "paragon" choices boil down to saying "I hate Cerberus but I'm going to work for them anyway."  I mean, honestly!

The last straw was my reunion with Ashley, my romantic interest from the first game.  The game forced me to throw her over for Cerberus--absolutely the last thing I would have done if I had the choice, completely out of character.  At this point I really have no desire to play through the rest of the game, it's so unpleasant.

Moriarty, thanks for raising the issue so eloquently.  And devs, if you are reading this, please give some thought to what the original poster is saying.  There are a lot of huge fans out there who feel the same way.

Modifié par Glorfindel2, 01 février 2010 - 04:05 .

[LucidStrike]

mcvxiii wrote...

I disagree with you. Shepard has been becoming more than a ****** sapien since the first game when his brain is altered to understand the prothean beacons. By the end of ME1 Shepard is something more than human. This game continues in that trajectory this time it is his physical body that has been altered and it echos the conclusion of this game. I don't think that the reasons given for working with (note: not for) Cerberus at this juncture has "more holes than a sieve", your options at this point are to work with Cerberus to stop the reaper threat or not and do nothing.

OTHER than human, not more than human.

We have no reason to believe that the Beacons change an individual's physiology at all.

Anti-fascists infiltrate fascist groups all the time. I'm in Cerberus to destroy Cerberus. So long as BioWare let's me do that, I'll make do, even if I think it was a bad idea to write Shepherd into this particular corner.

[Nozybidaj]

Chrisimo79 wrote...

Anyone who would throw the chance to save all those colonists and defeat the Collectors away - just because he doesn't want to work for Cerberus - isn't really paragon. So I don't get all the complaining about working for Cerberus. Working for Cerberus IS the paragon choice in this case.

I agree.  What gets me though is the completely passive-agreesive attitude of Shepard throughout the whole game.  He doesn't once confront TIM about anything.  Not about Akuze, not about SuZe, not about any of the horrible experiments he uncovered in ME1. 

He doesn't once try to do anything to gain the upperhand, he has access to Cerberus systems and operatives and doesn't so much as ask Tali to hack the computers or have Garrus spy on Miranda or do anything to dig up information or evidence about Cerberus' activities.  He doesn't once try and undermine anything TIM does, no looking for other projects, destroying any Cerberus installations, or uncover anything to bring their activities to light. 

Even worse he just goes along with everything, whatever TIM tells you to do, you do, you don't even have a choice as Joker refuses to let you do anything once TIM says he wants to talk to you.

Aside from making a few snide comments here and there Shepard is a completely blank automaton just running around doing TIM's bidding for the entire game.  Only at the very end of the game does Shepard get to make any kind of real choice and it's unclear exactly what that choice is going to entail.

Overall, while I agree that working with Cerberus out of necessity given the choice of direction for the story is probably the right thing to do no one does anything except just blindly go along with it.  The only characters in the entire game that have any sort of believable reaction to the whole scenario are Ash/Kaidan.

Modifié par Nozybidaj, 01 février 2010 - 04:18 .

[mcvxiii]

The cipher was not merely a simple translator as that would not work for how the protheans communicated, "it would be like trying to explain colour to a creature without eyes". To understand the messages in the beacons one had to have a shared collective unconsciousness with the protheans. Altering the brain's physiology would really be the only way to comprehend.

[smudboy]

The OP is correct in his analysis. There should be an option for the player to clearly ditch Cerberus, (as much as it was satisfying to tell off TIM at the end), well before the end of the story.



However, ME2 is essentially the Cerberus' Apologist. The experiments on Husks and Thorians were explained. The researchers were the direct cause of Jack's problems, not TIM/Cerberus. Miranda and co. are simply "doing what needs to be done", which is exactly what Shepard is: the guy that gets things done. So, the railroad puts us on this path, and does it clearly, that Cerberus is needed: You've been brought back, you're the only one who can save the galaxy again, and your Paragon/Renegade attitude will work on doing the best thing regardless of the political and ethical implications.



Why wouldn't you keep the Collector base? You need all the help you can get: The Reapers are coming. Damn the rest of the galaxy for not understanding this. How do you fight a million year old enemy without learning about them?



They didn't really talk about Kohoku, though. (That I noticed.)



The 1st comic touched on the battle between the Cerberus and the Shadow Broker.

[Kyria Nyriese]

I enjoyed reading the original post and agree with a lot of things that the original poster had to say. However, as others have stated, this is the darkest of the trilogy. Also you have to keep in mind, a very old quote that Wrex used in the first game "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" Right now, you are trying to stop the Collectors and find out what the Reapers are doing, neither the council nor the systems alliance want to admit that the Reapers exist, to the point of accusing you of being mentally unstable. So you have two enemies, Cerberus - terrorist organization, will do anything to get the job done no matter what the consequences, and the Collectors/Reapers - out to destroy/harvest all life in the galaxy. Which is worse? Personally Cerberus is the lesser of the two evils, and ask my husband, I spent the entire game wanting to tell TIM to shove it up his ***. In the end of the game, where you can basically tell him to go to **** was the best part of the entire game. I have every intention of telling him to go to **** every playthrough.

[KnightofPhoenix]

Wynne wrote...

KnightofPhoenix wrote...
Keep in mind that TIM will revive Shepard even
if he was maximum paragon and absolutely abhors Cerberus. And keep in
mind that TIM did NOT attempt to brainwash Shepard in project Lazarus
(and he could have). He in fact made sure that Shepard remains Shepard,
regardless of his beliefs.

I wish people would stop looking at TIM as a "villain". And start looking at him more like an anti-hero.

Yeah, seriously. TIM is not a villain. He's a realistic, sane man consumed by fear of the inevitable. He's basically the only person besides Shepard who really gets it. His real problem is that he's willing to go overboard to get it, but even he refuses to let Miranda implant Shepard with a control chip to ensure you do what he says. Miranda tells you that--if it had been up to her, you would have had no free will and while she turns around later, it's TIM that wanted you free in the first place, not her. He believes in Shepard exactly as Shepard is and won't let her compromise your free will because he knows in his gut that you know best. That it's Shepard that can keep the galaxy safe, not him or anyone else.

It can be said that TIM actually protects himself from himself later in the game by ensuring you have that freedom, to ignore him when he asks you to bring back the Reaper tech. Ironic, but fitting, and very much in character for him I think. You're his failsafe, you're what can keep him from going too far because he himself doesn't know where the line must be drawn.

It's not that he's cartoon eeeeeeevil, he's not Mr. Burns as some people paint him to be. At the end, his main problem is that he wants to go too far, and that out of a brief madness born of panic; he thinks using their tech against them may be the only way. He doesn't get what you get because he hasn't seen the effects of indoctrination in the field like Shepard has. He's a suit who sits in his chair and smokes and plays chess with his universe.

TIM is canny enough to realize what the Council doesn't, but he is not wise enough or noble enough to realize what many Shepards do--that getting involved with Reaper tech may very well be as sure an end to our existence as if we had let Sovereign send the signal. That it may be even worse than getting wiped out, because you may be strengthening the enemy's ranks rather than your own, making it even easier for the galaxy to die and the next batch of sentient species to be taken apart.

Reaper tech is a great big Pandora's box you probably just don't want to open. I'm not even sure if my most Renegade Shepards will hand it over to the Illusive Man. Trusting it may be even worse than giving up a potentially valuable tool for survival. It really is a grey choice; it's the kind of thing you can see both the good and the bad of, and that's why it's perfect as an ending to ME2.

It's a good, well thought out theory. But it's just a theory. We don't really know what TIM wants to do with the facility or its dangers.
I perserved the facility, while knowing the risks. But the benefits far outweight the risks and costs imo. I figured if we got a hold of the collector base:
- We would acquire a deep insight into reaper technology and the reapers themselves. Knowing one's enemies is necessary and we know next to nothing about the reapers. Knowing how to create a reaper = knowing how to destroy it.
- The facility would provide irrefutable proof that the reapers exist and that would make the council stfu and finally do something.
- And yes, as a humanist, I figured this would make humanity skyrocket and advance to astronomical levels. I support human dominance / hegemony (not racism or supermacism, and not genocide against any species, except the rachni). Human history was built with hegemonies like Babylon, Rome, Islamic Caliphate, Britain and the USA. They help make sense of the system and are almost always a positive force.
- War is all about risk. And when facing something like the reapers, we must undertake even more risks. IF you look at Sheppards career since ME1, it was all about risk taking.

What TIM will do to the station and the consequences of using it will be made clear in ME3, but until now we can only speculate. Is is possible that it would be a mistake? Yes and I would rectify that mistake. But knowing what I know and were I in the same situation, I would always preserve the facility.
 

Modifié par KnightofPhoenix, 01 février 2010 - 05:41 .

[glacier1701]

The major issues of what has been discussed here did come up on the old boards way back. And the paragons there made it clear that the choice to work WITH Cerberus had to be clear cut. BioWare's attitude was 'trust us' we'll take care of everything properly. When the game begins there was care to ensure that a Paragon Shepard did feel that they could walk out at anytime and that they were working WITH Cerberus and not FOR them. Yet pretty much after that BioWare got lazy and its clear that they could not be bothered to keep making that distinction. In essence the story was always going to be you have no choice in the matter. And its made painfully clear by the attitude of the Council and Alliance. The kind of political ineptitude that they display makes me wonder why they are still in power as almost anyone with a solid agenda should be able to supplant them.

In the end it is obvious that the Paragon side of things was biased against until the very final choice. That ending choice and the dialog onboard the ship afterward seems to me to show that by then BioWare expects that the whitewashing they have done in how Cerberus is portrayed would make you want to save the Collector base. They could only have expected that if they shortchanged the Paragon path along the way. The writers may have done a good job on some of the characters but the overall storyline is weak (and that does not even begin to touch on how the ME2 ending invalidates the whole point of ME1). It is weak because it does not fully explore BOTH sides of the moral choices. The darker choices tend to be the ones highlighted, the arguements for them expounded on and in the end to make more sense within the game.

This did mean i did not enjoy the game I certainly did but there was almost always a sense of something lacking at every stage. That lack was the inability to express the paragon choices at key parts. What was given to say lacked punch and made Shepard look inept which is contradicted at many other points in the game. The writing while it had many good points needs better reviewing and from outside sources. Being looked at from within for so long has meant the weaknesses within it once overlooked continually kept on being overlooked and became accepted. And that also meant that the ending which had this been the first of the series been a great ending just contradicted everything established and the whole point of ME1.