653 réponses à ce sujet

[AntiChri5]

Has skilled Admiral killed to protect his own secrets.



want more



He has political candidates killed so they will not win an election.



What more do you need to know?



Sent a team of killers onto a helpless civillian vessel, risking hundreds of innocent lives.



Still not enough?



Had children experimented upon tortured and killed.



What do you think?

[Sockwolf]

Nothing they've done in either Mass Effect games or the Ascension novel leads me to believe TIM is anything but evil. Cant's say about individual Cerberus operatives, but their head honco is a very naughty boy.
I don't really think of Miranda and Jacob as Cerberus by the end of ME2 anyway. I see the Normandy as having gone rogue.

Although Cerberus have given us some nice free DLC. Maybe they're trying to buy the players off.

Modifié par Sockwolf, 25 février 2010 - 05:55 .

[glitter_guld]

Ahalazar wrote...
The Illusive (- name hint! "ILL") man knows of the existance of a galactic threat. He's doing anything and everything possible to stop it from killing everyone. What's being evil have to do with survival?
...

This is the point. We don't know the whole picture. His actions are the result of his knowledge. He sees reapers, he learns how to fight them. What we see as a ruthless behaviour is just a side-effect of his actions. He is clearly not evil. Self-determined - yes, having his own agenda - yes.

[glitter_guld]

AntiChri5 wrote...

Has skilled Admiral killed to protect his own secrets.

want more

He has political candidates killed so they will not win an election.

What more do you need to know?

Sent a team of killers onto a helpless civillian vessel, risking hundreds of innocent lives.

Still not enough?

Had children experimented upon tortured and killed.

What do you think?

Such an extensive evil list,  Pales in comparison to what holy specters do for the benefit of the holy counsil, though.

Modifié par glitter_guld, 25 février 2010 - 06:04 .

[Alratan]

As another thread somewhere around here has said, the actions of Cerberus are nothing compared to those of the Council: sanctioned genocide, massive-scale biological weaponry use, permanent exile of a species and withdrawal of support in their time of need; the list goes on. The major difference is that Cerberus isn't seen to have done as many good works in comparison, although Miranda, Jacob and TIM all give examples towards that. Cerberus is an organisation that tends towards the morally grey, and without sufficient oversight any operation it undertakes is liable to lean towards evil. That doesn't mean Cerberus as a whole is evil, however, merely poorly managed in some areas - not all members of Cerberus are evil, as evidenced by the crew of the Normandy SR-2. Whether TIM is evil is another matter, but even if he was, his views cannot be taken to be entirely representative of the organisation, although it certainly doesn't help. Assuming he is evil, however, significant sections of his organisation don't seem hell-bent on evil aims or even methods, so it's a tricky one.

[lost lupus]

i gotta say after ME 1 plus reading both books ive gotta say ive got no love for them
(also does the first book pertain to EDI's origins or am i just putting together 2 + 2 and getting 6?)

but as for part 2 it sort of brought me round to why you need a group thats no bogged down by tape
a group willing to do whats nessary............ hell with untill the collector ship i trusted TIM he gave me no reason to distrust him hell he brought me back to life no-strings

ah TIM would did you have to screw me? that base would have been yours!
bascaly still dont "trust" TIM but i truely beleive his onlygoal is advacing human interest's

im yet to see any racism from any from any cerebrus member outside of the second book
could just have been just that cell which only prove's that TIM will use anybody to get the job done rather then promote anti alien agenda

Modifié par lost lupus, 25 février 2010 - 06:09 .

[Bartlebyfinch]

Is Cerberus really Evil?

In this game, until you have to make that final decision, it doesn't really matter. They are the only ones who believe Shepard about what is going on and the only ones with the resources & willingness to fight. He can either work with an unspeakably evil terrorist organization, or he can sit back and watch the Reapers destroy all live in the galaxy. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" or if you prefer "any port in a storm."


But, just for the sake of argument...

In my opinion, "yes." Cerberus is evil. The things that they did in ME1 alone (completely discounting stuff from the novels) makes them worthy of that title. If you mix that kind of "ends justifies the means" mentality with an agenda wrapped up in ethnic/racial supremacy, you are opening the door for all kinds of atrocities.

That does not mean, though, that all of the members of Cerberus are evil. TIM isn't exactly open with his underlings about the lengths to which he is willing to go. Remember that Cerberus operates in self contained cells that never know what the other cells are doing. The only man who can ever see the big picture is TIM. By talking to various members of the Normandy crew, it's pretty obvious that lots of them (most of them actually) just think of Cerberus as a protector of humanity that has gotten a bad rap... or they are working for Cerberus because, like Shepard, they can't find any other way to fight the Reapers.

So, while the ultimate goals of the organization are shady, Cerberus is full of good people, most of whom have no idea how dark their organization's agenda truly is.

EDIT:  Which makes them a lot like PETA! 

Modifié par Bartlebyfinch, 25 février 2010 - 06:11 .

[kanodin]

glitter_guld wrote...

Ahalazar wrote...
The Illusive (- name hint! "ILL") man knows of the existance of a galactic threat. He's doing anything and everything possible to stop it from killing everyone. What's being evil have to do with survival?
...

This is the point. We don't know the whole picture. His actions are the result of his knowledge. He sees reapers, he learns how to fight them. What we see as a ruthless behaviour is just a side-effect of his actions. He is clearly not evil. Self-determined - yes, having his own agenda - yes.

Except Cerberus was still going around committing atrocities like Akuze before ME1 when nobody knew anything about reapers, smart money says they'll still be doing so after the reapers are gone as well.

[Riot Inducer]

glitter_guld wrote...

Such an extensive evil list,  Pales in comparison to what holy specters do for the benefit of the holy counsil, though.

He missed a few points
*Killed off all the inhabitants of at least 3 human colonies in order to test Husks/Thorian Creeprs/Thresher Maws

*Killed at least two companies of Alliance marines in order to examine thresher maw attacks on humans

*Subjected an Alliance marine survivor from the aforementioned test to years of torture to see the effects thresher maw venom has on human biology

*Killed and tortured hundreds of human children (EDI confirms that TIM did in fact know what was going on at Jack's facility)

*Released insane rachni clones upon an entire sector of space (albeit unintentionally) causing the deaths of dozens of Alliance servicemen.

*Compromised the security of the Alliance's Ascension biotic school in order to capture a promising biotic girl in the hopes of restarting tests similar to what Jack and the other children endured.

And that's just what we know about, from what I hear the next book is full of more examples of TIM's charity work <_<

[GenericPlayer2]

Shep says it best when he tells TIM "I know what you are and what is the price of dealing with you."

You can try and convince yourself Cerberus are the good guys, but if you did the sidequests in ME1 and read between the lines in ME2 I really don't know how you can reach that conclusion. I am certain TIM leaked info to Alliance command that Shep was working for Cerberus, that Cerberus was behind the abductions, and that Horizon would be hit next. He made sure a former team mate was sent there, and then he watched the events unfold. First, his gamble that the Collectors are after Shep pays off, and he sows the seeds of discord with the old team member so that Shep feels more compelled to cut off all ties and commit to Cerberus.

Even if you don't believe all that, TIM never tells you what is really going on, you only get bits and pieces that are designed to manipulate you. He offers no reason to trust him.

In terms of Cerberus being pro-humanity, I believe that is a recruitment slogan or the 'public face' they wish people to believe.

Modifié par GenericPlayer2, 25 février 2010 - 06:30 .

[Aradace]

I could care less if they are good/evil/indifferent...The facts are thus: They are the ONLY organization that was looking into the missing colonies and actually DOING something about it instead of playing politics. Besides, even if they were evil, there's one thing Ive learned about situations such as these. And that is sometimes, you have to fight evil with evil.

[GenericPlayer2]

Aradace wrote...

I could care less if they are good/evil/indifferent...The facts are thus: They are the ONLY organization that was looking into the missing colonies and actually DOING something about it instead of playing politics. Besides, even if they were evil, there's one thing Ive learned about situations such as these. And that is sometimes, you have to fight evil with evil.

No argument there, but if you blow up the base and give TIM the finger then that is "mission accomplished". You can't go out of your way to help someone like TIM when he refuses to deal with you in a clear and honest way.

[aaniadyen]

Oh, come on. Could you really say no to a face like this?

[Mnemnosyne]

The answer to this question can vary based on your concept of 'evil'.

They are clearly willing to do just about anything, even to the very humans they claim to be protecting, and often with questionable or paper-thin 'reasons' behind it as well.  During the course of ME1 we discover two major things they've done that have very little redeeming value or excuse:

They arranged for an entire unit of marines to be attacked by a thresher maw on Akuze and then did experiments on the survivors.  Goal?  Unknown.  Weaponizing thresher maws, or perhaps learning about the kind of damage they can do in order to develop more effective medical treatments.  Note that this was years prior, during a period of relative peace - there was no pressing need to develop new weapons.  Either way, the end goal was not so critical that a squad of marines should have been sacrificed for it.  A good argument might be able to be made for using prisoners or criminals in such experiments, but certainly not loyal Alliance soldiers who have never done anything wrong.

They arranged for an entire colony of human civilians to be converted into husks as part of some kind of experiment.  Goal?  The exact goal is unknown, but Miranda's comments in ME2 suggest they were trying to learn enough about the husk-creation process to be able to duplicate it or control the husks.  In this case the goal might be considered somewhat reasonable, but again, the methods used went far beyond what was necessary.  Once again, you might make a good argument for using prisoners or criminals in these kinds of experiments, but human, alliance civilians?  That's going a step too far for no benefit.

Now, other things like the death of Banes or Kahoku are a lot more questionable.  In this case Cerberus could be argued to have been defending themselves against discovery and attack.  Experiments with rachni and thorian creepers are also a lot easier to justify, since loyal human civilians and soldiers aren't being experimented on for no significant gain.  Note that they weren't the ones who created the rachni queen threat in the first place, and as far as we know, even though their experiments got out of hand, they at no time risked releasing rachni that could reproduce.

Booglarize wrote...

What bugged me most about Cerberus was the single-minded focus on "human" interests. It may seem fine and dandy from our perspectives, but in the context of the game which has multiple species interacting and trying to get along, it does seem like an unsettling kind of bigotry.

I sort of see them in the same light as I would, say, a group promoting "white" interests here on Earth.

Not really.  As noted in-game, each of the other species typically has their own sort of organization that promotes them.  This is more along the lines of promoting national interest.  There are plenty of organizations devoted to the promotion of American/English/Japanese/etc. interests.  If the various species were not separated into species-based nations, that would be a good argument, but they are.  There's no analogy on earth because we don't have nations based purely on race.  We don't have the Republic of White People or the Black Confederation, but in Mass Effect we have the Turian Hierarchy, for example.  The Mass Effect galaxy is arranged almost entirely by species.  Indeed, as far as we know in game, we have never even heard of a means for a member of one species to gain citizenship under a different government.  There are no Turians that have become naturalized Asari citizens, no Asari that have become naturalized Alliance citizens, etc that we know of.

In the end though, if we believe that the ends justify the means, the question to be answered are 'what are the ends that Cerberus is working toward?'  Defeating the collectors (and then the reapers) is certainly a good goal.  Promoting human interests?  Also good for the most part, considering the way the political structure of the galaxy is arranged by species.  Securing human dominance in the galaxy, however, is a more questionable goal, and could be considered evil depending on what is meant by 'dominance'.  Does the Illusive Man mean dominance in the manner that the Citadel Council has been dominant (but still fair) for the last 2000+ years?  That's a reasonable goal.  Or does he mean dominance in a more dictatorial sense the way the Soviet Union dominated the many countries in their sphere of influence?

In the end, I am not a fan of the Illusive Man's goals, but I wouldn't go so far as to call them 'evil.'  But then, I rarely use that word in a real context because it has no absolute definition, tends to be very emotionally charged, and can essentially mean "anything that the speaker disagrees with."

[GenericPlayer2]

Koyasha wrote...
Not really.  As noted in-game, each of the other species typically has their own sort of organization that promotes them.  This is more along the lines of promoting national interest.  There are plenty of organizations devoted to the promotion of American/English/Japanese/etc. interests.  If the various species were not separated into species-based nations, that would be a good argument, but they are.  There's no analogy on earth because we don't have nations based purely on race.  We don't have the Republic of White People or the Black Confederation, but in Mass Effect we have the Turian Hierarchy, for example.  The Mass Effect galaxy is arranged almost entirely by species.  Indeed, as far as we know in game, we have never even heard of a means for a member of one species to gain citizenship under a different government.  There are no Turians that have become naturalized Asari citizens, no Asari that have become naturalized Alliance citizens, etc that we know of.

Not entirely true. Drell live on the Hanar homeworld, and the Volus are a client species of the Turians.

[Aradace]

GenericPlayer2 wrote...

Aradace wrote...

I could care less if they are good/evil/indifferent...The facts are thus: They are the ONLY organization that was looking into the missing colonies and actually DOING something about it instead of playing politics. Besides, even if they were evil, there's one thing Ive learned about situations such as these. And that is sometimes, you have to fight evil with evil.

No argument there, but if you blow up the base and give TIM the finger then that is "mission accomplished". You can't go out of your way to help someone like TIM when he refuses to deal with you in a clear and honest way.

True, but you have to look at it this way...If TIM is actually stupid enough to cross Shepard, he WILL end up dead.  It's just the way of things in all things Shepard which is: You screw with Shepard, you will die.  Maybe not in ME1 or in ME2, but somewhere, sometime, he/she is going to make sure you have a very bad day lol.

[lost lupus]

Riot Inducer wrote...

glitter_guld wrote...

Such an extensive evil list,  Pales in comparison to what holy specters do for the benefit of the holy counsil, though.

He missed a few points
*Killed off all the inhabitants of at least 3 human colonies in order to test Husks/Thorian Creeprs/Thresher Maws
i dont remember cerebrus being connected to husks but creepers were to try and study them to what extent we dont know PLUS its shepards fault they got loose and went nuts not cerebrus thats on shep! maws see below

*Killed at least two companies of Alliance marines in order to examine thresher maw attacks on humans
Maw attacks were trying to advance research into making super soldier's an admiral goal (come on kick arse super soldiers man!

*Subjected an Alliance marine survivor from the aforementioned test to years of torture to see the effects thresher maw venom has on human biology see above

*Killed and tortured hundreds of human children (EDI confirms that TIM did in fact know what was going on at Jack's facility) yes and when he found out he shut it down re: voice logs, and the true of what happened is unknown as seen jacks memory is dodgy

*Released insane rachni clones upon an entire sector of space (albeit unintentionally) causing the deaths of dozens of Alliance servicemen. you said it yourself it wasnt on purpose mistakes happen and such a deadly tool would certainly advance human miltary domince plus they can not reproduce without a queen so if being able to be handled you just drop em on an enemy planet and blam the enemy is screwed

*Compromised the security of the Alliance's Ascension biotic school in order to capture a promising biotic girl in the hopes of restarting tests similar to what Jack and the other children endured.biotic super soldier we need biotics able to compete with the asri dont bet on allies staying allies

And that's just what we know about, from what I hear the next book is full of more examples of TIM's charity work <_<

[Mnemnosyne]

GenericPlayer2 wrote...

Not entirely true. Drell live on the Hanar homeworld, and the Volus are a client species of the Turians.

Those are still species based interactions.  The entire Volus 'nation' or whatever arranged to become a client of the Turian Hierarchy, and I presume all Drell are considered citizens in the Hanar nation.

I was wrong about the lack of a naturalization process, however.  I remembered the codex entry mentioning Turians and how non-Turians gain citizenship when they muster out of the army.

Regardless, by and large the position that the galaxy is arranged by species remains true.  Only if we were to see significant mixing where each nation was not almost entirely composed of a single species would this be any different.  As long as the Council is composed of the <race> Councilor, and the embassies are the <race> embassy, it's still a very species-defined galaxy.

[Felene]

If the ultimate evil can not be defeat by the ultimate justice.

Will the ultimate justice turn itself to evil in order to defeat the ultimate evil, or remain ultimate justice be at the mercy of ultimate evil.

Either way, ultimate evil still exist. [ Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2]

Not the same case but very close to what Cerberus is doing.

Its motive might be good, but, its going down the wrong way[or the right way, depend on how you look at it].

So is motive really important at the end? Or the end always justify the means.

"It is neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so."-William Shakespeare

Modifié par Felene, 25 février 2010 - 07:02 .

[They call me a SpaceCowboy]

MantisN1nja wrote...

No, they are just misunderstood.

It's not their fault, they had a bad childhood.

[Riot Inducer]

lost lupus wrote...

i dont remember cerebrus being connected to husks but creepers were to try and study them to what extent we dont know PLUS its shepards fault they got loose and went nuts not cerebrus thats on shep! maws see below

No Cerberus was behind the colony that was turned into husks. They were using an Exo-Eeni facility as a proxy for the Thorian creeper tests (that facility reported their findings directly to Cerberus even thought he personel didn't know what Cerberus was). And they incited the attacks on Akuze (remember Akuze was a thoroughly populated human colony)

 yes and when he found out he shut it down re: voice logs, and the true of what happened is unknown as seen jacks memory is dodgy

Nope, Jack shut that facility down, Cerberus barely bothered to salvage the tech that was left at the base, they even went with that researcher's advice and pigybacked on the Ascension program.

 you said it yourself it wasnt on purpose mistakes happen and such a deadly tool would certainly advance human miltary domince plus they can not reproduce without a queen so if being able to be handled you just drop em on an enemy planet and blam the enemy is screwed

Congratulations you've got all the ideals of a Cerberus goon here's your Hexagon badge now get in line for the liquification machine. Humanity needs a reaper if we're going to take over the galaxy! 

[N7 Vanguard]

hmm... well Cerberus is defiantly evil. They kidnapped people who were against them in the first game. Experimented on numerous individuals, they do not like other species, even if they have no reason to. The invisible man reveals his intentions at the end of ME2 and that is completely wrong. Considering it will come down to mind control from reapers, as if being on the abandoned reaper right before that mission, wasn't evidence enough. Plus they are named after the 3 headed dog of hell. Not to mention a ton of other evidence showing how dark the organization actually is. Think the empire from star wars.



Sounds evil to me.

[Thargorichiban]

I also find it very funny and ironic that in this game Cerberus suddenly cares about colonists... As opposed to the previous game where they conducted experiments on colonists and even wiped out an entire colony when they decided they wished to turn them into husks.

[Remaix]

AKUZE.