That said, the Alliance seems to be organised quite unlike today's governments. Its chain of command is less strict (for example, Ambassador Udina seems to exercise a broad autonomy from the Alliance Parliament/Cabinet) and the structure is modular. This is probably the result of interstellar economy and finance. In its purpose and modus operandi the Alliance is somewhat akin to the British East India Company.
The Human population beyond the Solar system is relatively small, with the largest colonies not exceeding population of 5 million. But the amount of commodities being moved around is very large. Therefore the Alliance's budget gets most of its income not from individual taxpayers, but from corporations. Therefore the Alliance represents not public interests at all, but rather corporate interests. And the corporations may influence different divisions/agencies of the Alliance directly, bypassing the Parliament/Cabinet's bureaucratic structure, that may be there just for show in the first place.
It looks like this is the case with Cerberus. Maybe other branches of the Alliance are not happy about it, but there is nothing they can do. Maybe they are not even supposed to do anything about it. That's why Rear Admiral Kahoku was almost helpless, and ran his investigation like it was his personal matter. His conclusion, that Cerberus had gone rogue, may have been totally erroneous. It's only his ill-informed opinion. Or there is a gross misunderstanding floating around as to what he was trying to say to Shepard (see below). In any case, he should have known better than mess with something like that.
Also when did Cerberus go rogue? And more importantly, why would they? It's not like the Alliance interfered with their "questionable" activities in the 2160s and 70s...
LONG STORY SHORT:
Supplying, controlling, monitoring security leaks and accounting for an intelligence agency is costly. It's more expedient to have it as a self-sufficient outfit, if you are unscrupulous enough, like the Systems Alliance.
PROOF:
The Normandy SR-1 was a state-of-the-art never-before-seen advanced prototype military spacecraft. There is no doubt that the stealth technology and the Tantalus drive core were top secret designs, which applied to all the materials and alloys used in the production. Thus, the Systems Alliance had to send a mission to destroy the Normandy's debris on the crash site. Bomb the crash site itself out of existence by an anti-matter weapon, like those reportedly used for "containment" protocols on Noveria. Hire a merc band to carry it out, if sending an Alliance ship was impossible.
Yet, Admiral Hackett never gave the order. Neither immediately after the disaster, nor at any point later, although the site's coordinates were known to him. So why the criminal negligence on the job? Or did the Alliance Command have other plans for the crash site? That's quite possible. Rather than outright destroy the debris, the brass could have decided to wait and see, who might go after them. Who would be interested in the stealth technology so much as to send an expedition to the crash site? Maybe the Batarian "rogue state"? Or maybe the Turian allies?
So, who do you assign to carry out such a task? Right, your intelligence agency. But why was it Cerberus, that kept watch over who goes to Alchera and for what purpose? Why was TIM holding back, and didn't send his own men down there (although in the ME2 intro he expressed interest in not losing Shepard)?
The answer is: Fleet Admiral Hackett was relying on Cerberus to carry out the task that he had to have carried out as a matter of his command duties.
***
And after Shepard's near-corpse was eventually delivered to Cerberus, TIM ordered to send the Commander's dog tags to Admiral Hackett, to have the KIA status officially declared.
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Some supporting facts:
(None of which taken alone is worth as much as the proof above, but taken together they form quite a picture.)
The main supporting fact is, of course, that Cerberus was the Alliance Black Ops at some point, as uncovered by Rear Admiral Kahoku (while at the same time assuming that they went rogue on the basis that they killed his marines). And there is zero fact about the reason for going rogue before or after killing the Kahoku's marines. But another fact is that Cerberus has been portrayed in the Alliance's media (on the rare occasions it was mentioned at all) as a rogue subversive organisation long before the events of ME1. Since its very beginning, in fact. Which provided the Alliance with the necessary deniability.
Note that Cerberus' affiliation with the Alliance was always kept secret from Cerberus' own operatives and (naturally) from the vast majority of the Alliance functionaries. So that random hostile actions (attack on SSV Geneva, Kai Leng's prison break) occured once in a while long before Kahoku's marines got in trouble.
Cerberus is "privately funded" by some people in the Alliance military-industrial complex. The people of the same kind that formed the Alliance some 40 years back.
Rear Admiral Kahoku was unable to gather any support whatsoever from the Alliance while investigating the disappearence of a unit of Alliance marines. Cerberus "infiltrators" must be very numerous and/or very high up in the Alliance to block out all Kahoku's channels. In fact, Kahoku found himself in a more disadvantageous situation than some police chief fighting the Mafia on Sicily. After his death, the Alliance reported it as "natural causes", instead of launching a patriotic campaign about a heroic bloody icon of Alliance loyalty perishing in battle against dirty terrorists and encouraging people at all levels to sniff out the corruption and infiltration. Despite some claims on the Citadel's Presidium about "avowed enemies", the Alliance hasn't got any solid policy in place against Cerberus, not even on paper it seems, as certain officers have to check up with higher command when they happen upon Cerberus while performing their daily duties.
Fleet Admiral Hackett shows ambigous behavior on quite a few Cerberus-related occasions. Given his position, he can't be a Cerberus "infilrator". Even if he is an agent answering to TIM, he has to have been recruited by Cerberus at some point of his career and remaining loyal to the cause even after Cerberus supposedly went rogue and killed Rear Admiral Kahoku. But I somehow doubt it. Way more likely he is a long time "co-conspirator" with TIM (and the main MIC "contributors").
In the beginning of Ascension TIM isn't even aware of the Reaper threat. It's Commander Shepard and the Alliance who've taken Sovereign down. Two years later, we've got EDI, an advanced AI designed in part on the basis of the research into Sovereign (possibly that of both the salvaged debris and the 20-year old Dr. Shu Qian / Kahlee Sanders' research). We also have the Derelict Reaper expedition, which "took over" from an Alliance research into the Great Rift of Klendagon (which is practically TIM's admitting to Shepard that the Alliance and Cerberus are still working together).
TIM "resurrects" Shepard even though in ME1 the latter could have shown too much of the alien-loving attitude. One reason for this is that TIM uses Shepard as bait for the Shadow Broker and the Collectors in his, TIM's, game. But also like TIM says when giving his blessings for the Omega-4 mission: "Regardless of your opinion of Cerberus, of me, you are a valuable asset to the Mankind." In other words , it's the Alliance, not Cerberus proper, that would want Shepard brought back in any case.
TIM never indicates that there is any kind of tension between Cerberus and the Alliance. Even Jacob Taylor is more harsh in his Alliance comments. TIM just says the Alliance has been "overwhelmed" recently, and assures Shepard that whenever necessary he will "personally notify" the Alliance that it's cavalry time.
Despite some hatin' "on principle", an awful lot of highly qualified Alliance military personnel end up working under contract with Cerberus or even joining for good. Shepard. Jacob. Joker. Chakwas. Gabey&Ken. Kai Leng. It's only those we know of. Sure, the Alliance could have no problems with it before Cerberus "went rogue", but it doesn't seem to have problems with it after Cerberus' "going rogue" either.
The story of ME: Galaxy. Cerberus isn't even mentioned there, yet having played through the first mission of ME2 one can clearly see it as another Cerberus operation (succesful BTW, without even having Shepard). So yeah, Cerberus acts against Batarian terrorists who plot to kill the Council... And by the way, who puts Jacob in contact with Miranda there? Right, his former Marine commander does it, calling it something along the lines of "subtle action" or "intelligence operation" in the process.
In Retribution Rear Admiral Anderson, despite his glorious career in the Alliance, doesn't know a single person in a position of power in the Alliance, who he could vouch for. After his actions meant to expose "corruption" in the Alliance he is immediately faced with an "investigation" and has to resign from his official position before being deposed. Of course, those actions are reprehensible from the Alliance's official standpoint in any case, so the second part of this point is the weakest and barely deserves its place here, but Anderson's not trusting anyone doesn't add up with thinking that Cerberus is just a marginal extremist splinter group.
Also, according to the Shadow Broker's dossier, one of Anderson's video downloads (intermingled with orders for booze) is called "The Path of Lies: A History of the Alliance Military". Which kinda implies where Anderson's direction of thought has been going lately. Which kinda raises the question what Anderson thinks is exactly a lie about the Alliance military? Maybe Cerberus' "avowed enemy" status, among other things? That would explain the motivation behind his actions in Retribution.
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See also: Why TIM painted Horizon as target for Collector strike.
See also: WHAT THIS KAHOKU'S "ROGUE" WORD WAS EVEN SUPPOSED TO MEAN?
(Because all the case for Cerberus being rogue ultimately boils down to: "Kahoku said so".)
Modifié par Zulu_DFA, 06 mars 2011 - 07:13 .
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