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[Arijharn]

lovgreno wrote...
Also, for a "secret organisation" they do a very bad job keeping away from the public. Everyone seems to know about them and consider them an enemy.

Really? I don't know about you, but I never thought of Cerberus been public knowledge other than perhaps boogeyman stories. I mean; al-Queda is a terrorist organisation, but to you and me; it's membership is completely unknown, some of it's activities are known but it isn't as if they're offering bake sales and corporate events.

Unless you want to use the Cerberus logo as the Cerberus logo, but that's your prerogative. Personally, I think the idea of Cerberus having their own logo (and their own stationary!) as being completely retarded and is either represented in-game for the benefit of the player, is one of it's front corporations or even a mixture of the two as being vastly more likely (and to me; more palatable).

Having said that; I would like to see subtle links of Cerberus success stories in the games and other media though if only to make people pause to think a bit more, and not just in terms of technological success, but the socio-economic factors as well.

I'd like to see more stand out examples of that humantarian aid that Cerberus offered to Aite (Jacob's LM) and Horizon colonies. I mean, as it is now people just totally ignore that aspect because it obviously doesn't make up for their past crimes, but to me; that's just selective reasoning.

It's like the so called paragons out there who just want to execute TIM out of hand simply because of Akuze... which is highly ironic I think.

[Dean_the_Young]

Jagri wrote...

Council actions during both the Rachni Wars and the Krogan Rebellion was extreme however given the circumstance could be consider the only solution at the time

Rachni wouldn't stop fighting and any attempt to communicate with them proved futile. Given centuries of fighting later and the inability to still communicate with them left the only option but to wipe them out.

Krogan were very much like the Rachni and refused to give up after starting the rebellion. Krogan's love to fight any action the council took against them likely amused and entertained them greatly. They even went to the lengths to drop astoroids and rendered three turian worlds uninhabitable. Thats quite a horriable act to see the Krogan as simply victims. Genophage and massive casualities later was what it took the Krogan to surrender. Even when facing extinction some warlords continued to fight even after other Krogan had surrendered.

I really don't see any other way they Council could have handled ether situation. A enemy that refuses to give up nor desire to talk of a cease fire.

Key to winning a war: Removing one's will to fight...
How can you do this to a Krogan when thats his only desire? How could they know the will of the Rachni?

Once you ground a species to a planet and destroy its infrastructure, what that species wants to do is no longer relevant to its ability to do so. Whether they every talked terms or not, absolute genocide was not a requirement to stop them. The Krogan could be cured of the genophage at any point, but without a ship to take them off planet all the numbers in the galaxy won't help them.


Mind you, I was speaking of Shepard in particular, who can wipe an entire colony off the map (Feros), kill the only propegator of two species (Thorian and Rachni Queen), gets Sovereign killed (the gestalt AI of an entire species), destroy the Heretics, kill the Collectors, doom the Krogan to no real hope of reform or cure (kill Wrex/destroy genophage cure), and be openly preparing to wipe out all the Reapers, which is as many genocides as there are races of Reapers.

Shepard. Savior of the Galaxy. Hero of the Citadel. 6, arguably 7, counts of possible genocide, and aiming for thousands more.

[Xilizhra]

It's like the so called paragons out there who just want to execute TIM out of hand simply because of Akuze... which is highly ironic I think.

If it helps, I'm quite willing to forgive TIM if he A: helps battle the Reapers without any special agenda for humanity on his mind, and B: takes down Cerberus thereafter. However, I seriously doubt either one will come true.

[thegreateski]

Sajuro wrote...

Phaedon wrote...

thegreateski wrote...

Necessity knows no law.

When you're faced with extinction there's no such thing as good or evil, just different ways of averting a horrible death.

Well, it's a good thing that we know for a fact that most of Cerberus' immoral operations were conducted before the Reaper threat. So bye, bye necessity card.

You forget the term 'necessity' could be stretched to anything Cerberus wanted.
Teltin: The Asari are powerful biotics, we need powerful biotics out of necessity (when that doesn't work, say you never knew about it)
Akuze: We needed to find out how marines faired against a surprise Thresher Maw attack, and how acid adversely affects someone if is injected into them. This is necessary to prepare for any future wars with the Salarians. (If needed, deny cerberus was rogue and then blame alliance, repeat as necessary)
Exploding ships containing element zero: See Teltin.
Lure Marines into a thresher maw nest with fake beacon: The beacon was just lying around the base and the marines knew something Cerb didn't want so it was necessary to get rid of them.
Abduct and kill Kohaku: He was trying to find out what happened to his marines, needed to tie up loose ends... surely nothing bad would come of it.

Do not twist my words.

Before the Reaper threat, Cerberus was evil.
After the Reaper threat, Cerberus MIGHT be considered evil.

During the Reaper threat? Morality takes a backseat to necessity. Any option that works is considered a good option.

Do not refer to the past when we are talking about the present. It's irrelevant. What a person does in the past does not dictate what their future actions will be.

Modifié par thegreateski, 01 décembre 2010 - 11:06 .

[V-rex]

Arijharn wrote...


I'd like to see more stand out examples of that humantarian aid that Cerberus offered to Aite (Jacob's LM) and Horizon colonies. I mean, as it is now people just totally ignore that aspect because it obviously doesn't make up for their past crimes, but to me; that's just selective reasoning.

Not to throw myself into another one of these huge debates but I really feel I must point out, The Illusive Man is the reason Horizon happened in the first place. He singled it out as a prime location, sent false reports about Cerberus being behind the abductions of human colonies and saying that Shepard was assisting them in doing so.
After that, he dropped another tip that Horizon was going to get hit, allowing Ashley/Kaiden to be dispatched there and thus, giving the Collectors a big juicy target, after all with Ashley/Kaiden there, there was a chance Shepard would follow.
Hence, the attack that happens on Horizon, and the trail of innocent dead left as a result of that, is thanks directly to the intervention of Cerberus. When the dust settled, the Illusive Man got intel on the Collectors and, as an added bonus, Shepard was confirmed to be working for Cerberus, thus alienating him from the Alliance.

I know that people will justify about how Horizon was something that needed to happen so that they could stop the Collectors and test their weapons against them and general stuff like that, but the fact still remains:
Cerberus are directly responsible for the Collectors arriving on Horizon. They are directly responsible for all the people who were lost there and they were directly responsible for alienating Shepard from the Alliance.

Whatever their motivations in regards to this, it doesn't suddenly make their 'humanitarian aide' to the Horizon colony any less empty, considering they are the reason it needed aide in the first place. That the people that were lost there was because Cerberus considered them acceptable losses. I'm sorry but I really can't see any way to justify what they did by talking about their 'humanitarian aide' in this instance.

P.S Did anyone else notice that after Horizon, the Collectors just seemed to stop doing stuff? I'm not trying to bring up a crazy Collector/Cerberus conspiracy theory here but I'm just saying, considering that they were supposedly collecting colonies like crazy it seems wierd that one failure causes them to just stop all due progress dead in its tracks.

[TheNexus]

What's that Shakespeare quote? "There is no good or evil, only thinking makes it so" or something like that.



Anyway, Cerberus is an "ends justify the means" organization. If they see a perceived threat, they will just try to stop it and not bother going through the "due process" that the Alliance does with the Council. For them it's just too time consuming and not reacting quickly enough. We could see that through them wanting to kill Saren with husks and Rachni.



It should be noted that they are, beyond all else, for better or for worse, completely pro human. Sometimes it can come across as anti-any other alien, as Miranda shows no remorse for Cerberus experiments, stating something along the lines of "think of how many human lives we could have saved if we had the Rachni assisting us".



For the direction that, say, Paragon Shepard and the Council want to go in, Cerberus is bad because they dislike process and are practically anti-alien. They may solve problems quickly, sometimes, but by incredibly shady methods that may end up hurting more than helping.

[TheNexus]

double post

Modifié par TheNexus, 01 décembre 2010 - 11:35 .

[Arijharn]

While that is true, I think people who are honest with themselves would hopefully admit that it's far better to actually provide a target than allow the Collectors continue attacking at random and for reasons that are hopefully rather obvious.



Yes, they are responsible for the Collector's arriving on Horizon... but that was the entire point. As heartless as it sounds; we were going to lose people regardless, but Cerberus actions there at least greatly minimized those losses. There is no such thing (realistically speaking) as an absolute victory where no one but the enemy suffers loss, and it's unrealistic to the point of being rather naive to shoot for that goal.



And Shephard was alienated from the Alliance well before these events... but it wasn't so much as to alienate the Alliance imho, as it was to attract the attention of the Collector's.



As to your P.S: Considering that you made the Collector's and forced them into a situation that didn't favour them, they probably just concentrated on hunting Shephard down rather than collecting. That's kinda nonsensical to me, but a lot of things in that game doesn't make sense imo.

[lovgreno]

Arijharn wrote...
Really? I don't know about you, but I never thought of Cerberus been public knowledge other than perhaps boogeyman stories. I mean; al-Queda is a terrorist organisation, but to you and me; it's membership is completely unknown, some of it's activities are known but it isn't as if they're offering bake sales and corporate events.

Unless you want to use the Cerberus logo as the Cerberus logo, but that's your prerogative. Personally, I think the idea of Cerberus having their own logo (and their own stationary!) as being completely retarded and is either represented in-game for the benefit of the player, is one of it's front corporations or even a mixture of the two as being vastly more likely (and to me; more palatable).

Having said that; I would like to see subtle links of Cerberus success stories in the games and other media though if only to make people pause to think a bit more, and not just in terms of technological success, but the socio-economic factors as well.

I'd like to see more stand out examples of that humantarian aid that Cerberus offered to Aite (Jacob's LM) and Horizon colonies. I mean, as it is now people just totally ignore that aspect because it obviously doesn't make up for their past crimes, but to me; that's just selective reasoning.

It's like the so called paragons out there who just want to execute TIM out of hand simply because of Akuze... which is highly ironic I think.

But if Al-Queda was to tell us they did make good things that they for some unknown reason they can't tell us what it is, would we belive them considering all the terrorist acts they have admitted to have commited? A bad comparasion perhaps, so ignore it if you like.

A more varied picture of Cerberus in the game would be nice as it would work better with the story if they were described as a bit too idealistic but with good intentions instead of just clumsy and unecesarily brutal. But even though Jacob and Miranda honestly want to tell Shepard that Cerberus is at least a necesary evil they can't give Shep any real examples of good deeds from Cerberus. Instead they just half heartedly try to justify Cerberus brutal methods.

The Cerberus logo everywhere was probably just a miss by the writers. It is still kind of silly though.

[GracefulChicken]

@V-rex (sorry cant quote from my phone for some reason), regarding your PS. The collectors do continue collecting after Horizon. If you go into the Crew Quarters room on the Normandy, the random Cerberus crew is always talking about colonys that recently got hit. One of them has a family in a colony called New Canton (or something similar to that), and after a few visits to hear their convos, one of them mentions the colony was hit but their family relocated to Earth before it happened. I think in the Mess Hall there's also a couple comments about colonys getting hit by Collectors.



On topic: Im not going to jump into this debate, but I personally co-operate with TIM+Cerberus all through ME2, and I hope ME3 allows Shep to continue working with Cerberus somehow, even if its small side-missions to further Humanity. I dont see them as particularly "evil" through the series. Maybe misguided and going about their goal wrong, but not evil. Evil to me implies intentions of harm. Cerberus' intentions are mostly good. It doesnt seem like TIM actively sets about causing harm, it's just a by-product of what he and his organization are trying to do. Just my 2 cents, without going into too much detail (because its just baseless opinion, tbh)

[Asheer_Khan]

By the way... did any noticed that cerberus have "strange" habit of experimenting on childrens?



Teltin - Gilian - David... to mention those already known cases but how many other experiments on childrens were conduct and about which we still don't known is a big question...

[SimonTheFrog]

TheNexus wrote...



What's that Shakespeare quote? "There is no good or evil, only thinking makes it so" or something like that.

Anyway, Cerberus is an "ends justify the means" organization. If they see a perceived threat, they will just try to stop it and not bother going through the "due process" that the Alliance does with the Council. For them it's just too time consuming and not reacting quickly enough. We could see that through them wanting to kill Saren with husks and Rachni.

It should be noted that they are, beyond all else, for better or for worse, completely pro human. Sometimes it can come across as anti-any other alien, as Miranda shows no remorse for Cerberus experiments, stating something along the lines of "think of how many human lives we could have saved if we had the Rachni assisting us".

For the direction that, say, Paragon Shepard and the Council want to go in, Cerberus is bad because they dislike process and are practically anti-alien. They may solve problems quickly, sometimes, but by incredibly shady methods that may end up hurting more than helping.

Sorry... but I feel like picking on you. This post is nothing but a verbatim reciting of the stuff that Miranda and Jacob (and other cerberus people on the normandy) say to Shep before and after Freedom's Progress. Where is the reflection? Where is the dialectic? Where is the putting their words in a context? 

Anyhow... on a serious note: i finally came around reading the novels and that made it even more clear that Cerberus was never intended being depicted as not evil, at least not from Drew Karpyshyn. The whole "we are not against aliens, we just want to help our fellow humans staying in the race" is b.s. retconned into ME2 for pleasing the paragons. 
They are a terrorist organization with fascistoid features that print recruitment brochures about "saving humans" for a image, but in fact pretty much only seek to "purify" the galaxy from all alien scum. 
And if you say that this end justifies bad means, than i can't help you 

[Dean_the_Young]

Asheer_Khan wrote...

By the way... did any noticed that cerberus have "strange" habit of experimenting on childrens?

Teltin - Gilian - David... to mention those already known cases but how many other experiments on childrens were conduct and about which we still don't known is a big question...

David was an autistic, not a child, nor was his case the focus of project overlord, while Gilian is a descendent from the Pragia biotic project line of research. So that really comes to one project line.

Cerberus has no exceptional interest in children-experiments to date. Even biotics are as much because Humanity is still in its first generation of biotics, and so a consequence of any biotics research in the early years is that the only human biotics to study were children.

[Arijharn]

Edit: Okay Dean.

Modifié par Arijharn, 01 décembre 2010 - 02:24 .

[Dean_the_Young]

Cut that out, Arijharn.

[Jagri]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Once you ground a species to a planet and destroy its infrastructure, what that species wants to do is no longer relevant to its ability to do so. Whether they every talked terms or not, absolute genocide was not a requirement to stop them. The Krogan could be cured of the genophage at any point, but without a ship to take them off planet all the numbers in the galaxy won't help them.

Mind you, I was speaking of Shepard in particular, who can wipe an entire colony off the map (Feros), kill the only propegator of two species (Thorian and Rachni Queen), gets Sovereign killed (the gestalt AI of an entire species), destroy the Heretics, kill the Collectors, doom the Krogan to no real hope of reform or cure (kill Wrex/destroy genophage cure), and be openly preparing to wipe out all the Reapers, which is as many genocides as there are races of Reapers.

Shepard. Savior of the Galaxy. Hero of the Citadel. 6, arguably 7, counts of possible genocide, and aiming for thousands more.

Krogan were a species that populated several systems and planets. It is nice to think you can round them all up and place them on a single planet but that is a impractical idea. The Council may have been attacked from warlords who have isolated themselves from the rest of the Krogan population to secretly breed and continue to fight for the Krogan Rebellion. I do think the genophage should be ended but hay that could be paragon idealism!

Shepard's actions or I will list them as potential actions should not be used in discussion. Those situations  you have listed can be avoided outside of a few forced story plots that must be done to advance the story line. I have no sympathy towards the Reapers or the Collectors given their agenda.

Modifié par Jagri, 01 décembre 2010 - 02:21 .

[Dean_the_Young]

Jagri wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Once you ground a species to a planet and destroy its infrastructure, what that species wants to do is no longer relevant to its ability to do so. Whether they every talked terms or not, absolute genocide was not a requirement to stop them. The Krogan could be cured of the genophage at any point, but without a ship to take them off planet all the numbers in the galaxy won't help them.

Mind you, I was speaking of Shepard in particular, who can wipe an entire colony off the map (Feros), kill the only propegator of two species (Thorian and Rachni Queen), gets Sovereign killed (the gestalt AI of an entire species), destroy the Heretics, kill the Collectors, doom the Krogan to no real hope of reform or cure (kill Wrex/destroy genophage cure), and be openly preparing to wipe out all the Reapers, which is as many genocides as there are races of Reapers.

Shepard. Savior of the Galaxy. Hero of the Citadel. 6, arguably 7, counts of possible genocide, and aiming for thousands more.

Krogan were a species that populated several systems and planets. It is nice to think you can round them all up and place them on a single planet but that is a impractical idea. The Council may have been attacked from warlords who have isolated themselves from the rest of the Krogan population to secretly breed and continue to fight for the Krogan Rebellion. I do think the genophage should be ended but hay that could be paragon idealism!

Since rounding up Krogan and keeping them largely locked away on a few monitored planets is what the Council does... yes, they could do that. And once they stop anyone from leaving, the Krogan holdouts can be put down elsewhere.

Shepard's actions or I will list them as potential actions should not be used in discussion. Those situations  you have listed can be avoided outside of a few forced story plots that must be done to advance the story line. I have no sympathy towards the Reapers or the Collectors given their agenda.

Shepards actions very well can be used in this discussion, because they are a reflection of what the Council tolerates, allows, and even rewards. If genocide didn't count simply because you had no sympathy or pity for the genocided, the entire idea of it being a crime ceases to be objective and merely a matter of position vis-a-vis the genocided.

Shepard can conduct genocide, and continue genocidal policies, and be applauded for it. By this very Council and its contemporaries. Shepard alone can surpass the known Council genocides, even as a Paragon. It is very relevant to judging what sort of organization the Council is.

[Arijharn]

I take exception to brutal child experimentation, but child studies in and of itself aren't what I'd call, morally outrageous.



I also don't think it was Cerberus' stated goals to outright brutally experiment on children, but was an independent action made by team leaders, rationalised to their crew that: "emotional distress is what caused Kaidan to kill Vyrnnus, is that something that is unique to Kaidan, or can emotional input increase biotic gains?"



I object to the brutal experimentation of children like Jacqueline because to me it seems like there'd be other avenues to which you could test for emotional input, but then again I'm not a child psychologist, so what the hell would I know?

[Xilizhra]

Wait, Feros? That isn't genocide; most of the colony survives. The only people killed in that case are the Zhu's Hope ones mind-controlled by the Thorian.

[Arijharn]

lovgreno wrote...
But if Al-Queda was to tell us they did make good things that they for some unknown reason they can't tell us what it is, would we belive them considering all the terrorist acts they have admitted to have commited? A bad comparasion perhaps, so ignore it if you like.

I think that's a far comparison I think, and you're right, it wouldn't completely expunge Cerberus' past actions. But Cerberus' actions in the past shouldn't be the only thing considered when deciding the fate of the organisation.

lovgreno wrote...
A more varied picture of Cerberus in the game would be nice as it would work better with the story if they were described as a bit too idealistic but with good intentions instead of just clumsy and unecesarily brutal. But even though Jacob and Miranda honestly want to tell Shepard that Cerberus is at least a necesary evil they can't give Shep any real examples of good deeds from Cerberus. Instead they just half heartedly try to justify Cerberus brutal methods.

Honestly, I disagree somewhat. I don't think of Husks, Thorian Creepers or even the Rachni as humans, so I can't really put myself into thinking that I should ascribe them the same sort of social mores. Especially the Husks or Creepers who are basically mindless automations anyway. The Rachni I have a little bit more sympathy for, but if Miranda is willing to say that they discontinued their experimentation, then I have either a choice to accept her word (in the absence of evidence to the contrary) or disbelieve her, and in the end, it's not really relevant regardless.

As to their brutal methods, well, i'm sure you already know my position on many of them since we've argued in the past about it

lovgreno wrote...
The Cerberus logo everywhere was probably just a miss by the writers. It is still kind of silly though.

It's because it's 'everywhere' that makes me think it's not Cerberus per say. It may be recognized as Cerberus by the people you talk too, but you talk to people of importance in the game and not plebians. And if you do talk to normal everyday joes, then none of them say: "Oh you're with Cerberus right? Yeah I can tell by the uniform."

[Arijharn]

Xilizhra wrote...

Wait, Feros? That isn't genocide; most of the colony survives. The only people killed in that case are the Zhu's Hope ones mind-controlled by the Thorian.

Depending on your choices with Jeong I think, don't ExoGeni essentially carpet bomb the rest? Well, if not 'carpet bomb' then 'forcibly evacuate and reassign key personnel'?

[lovgreno]

No one in the galaxy have clean hands. The problem with Cerberus is that they always use brutal (and usualy self defeating) methods. Pointing finger at non Cerberus and saying that they are just as bad as Cerberus doesn't make Cerberus crimes go away.

[Xilizhra]

I think that's a far comparison I think, and you're right, it wouldn't completely expunge Cerberus' past actions. But Cerberus' actions in the past shouldn't be the only thing considered when deciding the fate of the organisation.

Not the only thing, true; if Cerberus would be unalloyedly helpful against the Reapers, we should wait until they're beaten to arrest Cerberus leaders and hunt down the "renegade" cells.

Depending on your choices with Jeong I think, don't ExoGeni essentially carpet bomb the rest? Well, if not 'carpet bomb' then 'forcibly evacuate and reassign key personnel'?

I shot him once when I did Feros too early to be able to charm him, and ExoGeni didn't do anything about it.

[Dean_the_Young]

It does, however, put them in perspective. Genocide is pretty much as bad as you can get. Cerberus's record on genocide is, well, the Collectors at this point. The Council, especially if Shepard was reinstated, is far, far more.



Mote in an eye versus a tree in another.

[Xilizhra]

So, the Collectors vs... the Thorian in my case. I fail to see why the Council is oh-so-much worse.