427 réponses à ce sujet

[Terraneaux]

Micon2 wrote...

Also TIM is Shadow Broker or part of the shadow broker .org or Cerberus is SB, there must be a link.

No.  The Shadow Broker has been in operation since before humans arrived on the galactic stage, and moreover was in conflict with Cerberus for Shepard's body.  They are two separate organizations.  

[Wildecker]

While I'm all clear with the "Protect Mankind" line, to me the conclusion "We must have the most advanced weapons and be able to strike down any who might threaten us" just doesn't work. We're the new kid on the block, and the Council has shown in the past that they tend to overreact when under pressure. The Rachni were wiped out to the last by Krogan barbarians with HiTech weapons in the service of the Council, and when the same Krogans decided they would not longer obey the Council they got hit with the Genophage bioweapon. No reason to think they wouldn't repeat that pattern when Turians, Salarians and Asari feel threatened by the rising human star.

So the best course I see is to show them that humans are willing to work within the existing system and integrate themselves rather than tearing it down and rebuilding it as it suits us. Which is Cerberus' agenda under its past and current leadership. There's the example of the Imperial German Navy prior to World War One: while the German Emperor wanted to impress the British with a navy worth having as ally, he alienated them because a formidable ally can turn into a formidable enemy.

[Senalda]

The whole concept of working for Cerberus is the biggest turn-off in ME2. I mean, the organization has been painted out as being a sadistical terrorist organization that does human/alien experiments for no apparent reason. Why on earth would Shepard want to have anything to do with them, except maybe blowing them off the galactic map (again)? Even on my redneck rasist Shepard playthrough I'm having hard time understanding the idea. It's just wrong.



There are some hints that Cerberus has changed since the first game, but if such a thing has happened, there should've been some kind of groundwork laid out for that BEFORE ME2 started. Even in the book Ascension Cerberus is nothing more than power-hungry terrorist organization.

[Wildecker]

Cerberus Commando wrote...

Ok, so you do like the SR2?...haha... Ok seriously? You would go back? And have the council tell you to your face that the reapers army isn't real and have the Normandy grounded again because they think you're scitsofranic!?

Been there. Done that. Except for the grounded part because Udina didn't have the codes to do that to me. In fact I got restored to Spectre status provided I stick to the Terminus systems where it doesn't count ... and the word you're looking for would be "paranoid", not scitsofranic/schizophrenic. I don't hear other voices telling me funny things - I just know that they are out there and coming to get me. Oh, and everybody else, too.

Cerberus Commando wrote...
Seriously? All that hard work for that?

I'm old-fashioned. I believe it's better to say "I TOLD you so!" than "Well I could have told you but you didn't want to believe me anyway so why bother?"

Cerberus Commando wrote...
About Cerberus not having a fleet, ok dude, cone on, they constructed the SR2 for you and provided you with weapons and armor. What makes you think the Illisive Man dosent have his own private cerberus Fleet gaurding his hide out somewhere? The collector base can provide them with the collector weapons which could be used against the reapers. Remember the beam used to ice the SR1? Imagine it being used against the reapers! Building a human reaper isn't heathy for humanity. Unless one can be contructed without sacrificing human lives.

Okay, so Cerberus has a (small) number of ships. Freighters, I guess, not dedicated warships. It took them at least two years to gather the materials to build the second Normandy.
Yeah, I remember the beam that sliced the first Normandy. I also remember that they needed to aim their whole ship at me. From the look of it the Thanix gun outperformed that beam and could be built into turrets on warships bigger than my frigate.
My core issue with the Collector Base comes from listening to Legion's explanation why the True Geth would not  sign up with the Reapers and reasoning that the Reapers have used those beams for a long, long time - certainly long enough to know how to shield themselves from it. To kick them where it hurts you must come up with something that is not derived from their technology, something they haven't faced before and do not know how to counteract.

If I absolutely and positively had to build a human reaper I would ask for volunteers among the old and the terminally ill who will be dead soon anyway and might wish to contribute something. People are capable of sacrificing themselves for a purpose if you ask nicely.

[Multifarious Algorithm]

Well actually to pose the obvious point: there's nothing about the Reaper building process that we know of that says the people need to be alive. Possibly relatively fresh, but not alive - it would certainly be possible to get enough corpses over a longer time span for any sufficiently commited populace without killing anyone.

[Wildecker]

Senalda wrote...

The whole concept of working for Cerberus is the biggest turn-off in ME2. I mean, the organization has been painted out as being a sadistical terrorist organization that does human/alien experiments for no apparent reason. Why on earth would Shepard want to have anything to do with them, except maybe blowing them off the galactic map (again)? Even on my redneck rasist Shepard playthrough I'm having hard time understanding the idea. It's just wrong.

Well, someone out there is stealing humans in remote colonies beyond Council rule, and by the thousands. Cerberus wants them stopped. So do I. That The Man suspects a Reaper's hand in it may be an additional incentive, but it's not really necessary - I would go gunning for pirates just as well. 
Especially after paying that visit to Anderson on the Citadel and learning that the Council couldn't care less about a few human colonies disappearing on the border - "that's bound to happen when you settle out there."

Later when we learn more, Cerberus wants the Collectors taken out. Well, so do I.  Our ways parted when The Man wanted to keep that base for his organisation, and I would have liked to explain why I blew it sky-high in the end.

Senalda wrote...
There are some hints that Cerberus has changed since the first game, but if such a thing has happened, there should've been some kind of groundwork laid out for that BEFORE ME2 started. Even in the book Ascension Cerberus is nothing more than power-hungry terrorist organization.

For lack of an iPhone I haven't played Mass Effect Galaxy, but I read it's about Jacob and Miranda saving the Citadel Council from a Batarian bio-weapon. Not quite what I would have expected from Cerberus goons after ME1 ...

[Multifarious Algorithm]

The best line in ME2 is "I'm sorry. I'm having trouble hearing you - I'm getting a lot of bull**** on this line."

[Beholderess]

Cerberus Commando wrote...

Ok, so you do like the SR2?...haha... Ok seriously? You would go back? And have the council tell you to your face that the reapers army isn't real and have the Normandy grounded again because they think you're scitsofranic!? Seriously? All that hard work for that?

 

Again - working with Cerberus for now and supporting Cerberus and it's agenda in general are two completely different things. Just because enemies teamed for a time against something bigger does not mean than they ceased to be enemies.

In another thread long ago I've heard a good analogy: Cerberus is like a rabid dog that happens to be mauling your enemy. It might help you in this one fight, but it doesn't becomes any less rabid because of that, and you still need to put it down before it kills some innocent bystander.

[jgordon11]

I always felt that although perceived as this horrible how you could ever justify that terrorist organization, in ME2 you are able to actually see a completely different side to it. The only other part of Cerberus is their super soldier projects and biotic tests, which given are a definitely crossing hte line. That makes the player come into the game already bias towards the group. In ME2 you see how they are actually helping the galaxy and mankind out in a very important way. It was the council and repeatedly denies even the existance and berates shepard. The alliance downplayed shepards death and refused to recognize the reaper/collector threat out of expediancey of not stretching its damaged fleet while whole colonies dissappeared. In the end it is Cerberus, yes evil cerberus, who believes in what Shepard represents so they revive him, they fund him, give him a ship, a crew and give him free room to operate to get the job done with minimal interference to stop the collectors and stop millions of human lives.



In the end while they have done some terrible things to simply judge them as this all evil terrorist group is very simple minded. They arn't the nice guys, but sometimes to do the right thing you need to do some wrong things. I believe that is the whole point of making you work for them b/c while they do have questionable motives they are doing what needs to be done. In the words of the Illusive Man "Salvation comes with a cost. Judge us not by our methods, but what we seek to accomplish." Basically it comes done to if you believe in Machiavellian ideas, which i do. And that is why i support Cerberus.

[enormousmoonboots]

Cerberus Commando wrote...

About Cerberus not having a
fleet, ok dude, cone on, they constructed the SR2 for you and provided
you with weapons and armor. What makes you think the Illisive Man
dosent have his own private cerberus Fleet gaurding his hide out
somewhere?

Because...they don't? I don't
think you're appreciating how expensive it would be to build an entire
fleet. And Cerberus has about 150 operatives at any given time. Not enough manpower to run a whole fleet. Besides, where is he going to hide a fleet? What's he going to
do with a fleet?

Nobody's answered my question on the previous page regarding how Cerberus is significantly
better than the Council and Alliance, aside from being aware of the
Reapers. We can't even be sure the Council is as unaware as they seem,
because they don't trust you since TIM told them you were working for Cerberus now.

jgordon11 wrote...

I always felt that although perceived as this horrible how you could ever justify that terrorist organization, in ME2 you are able to actually see a completely different side to it. The only other part of Cerberus is their super soldier projects and biotic tests, which given are a definitely crossing hte line. That makes the player come into the game already bias towards the group. [...] In the end it is Cerberus, yes evil cerberus, who believes in what Shepard represents so they revive him, they fund him, give him a ship, a crew and give him free room to operate to get the job done with minimal interference to stop the collectors and stop millions of human lives.

Cerberus doesn't believe in Shepard in the slightest. TIM ressurects Shepard because he/she is useful. Also, 'free room to operate' =! putting bugs all over the ship and railroading Shepard into quests.

And no, you don't get to see a 'completely different side' of them during ME2. All of Cerberus's ops are micromanaged by one person: TIM. He is directly responsible for assassinating Kahoku, feeding at least two units of Alliance soldiers to thresher maws, feeding a colony to thresher maws, purposely exposing humans to eezo to make biotics, torturing and drugging young children, assassinating Alliance admirals, exposing a colony to thorian spores, turning a colony into husks, and unleashing the rachni on Alliance listening posts.

In the end while they have done some terrible things to simply judge them as this all evil terrorist group is very simple minded. They arn't the nice guys, but sometimes to do the right thing you need to do some wrong things. I believe that is the whole point of making you work for them b/c while they do have questionable motives they are doing what needs to be done. In the words of the Illusive Man "Salvation comes with a cost. Judge us not by our methods, but what we seek to accomplish." Basically it comes done to if you believe in Machiavellian ideas, which i do. And that is why i support Cerberus.

How many of the things in the above list were 'necessary'?

And consider this: out of the five experimental projects above (husks, thorian, rachni, biotics, thresher maws), how many were successful, as in 'they produced useful data and a viable result'? Exactly zero. They do not 'get sh*t done'.

[Bigdoser]

enormousmoonboots wrote...

Cerberus Commando wrote...

About Cerberus not having a
fleet, ok dude, cone on, they constructed the SR2 for you and provided
you with weapons and armor. What makes you think the Illisive Man
dosent have his own private cerberus Fleet gaurding his hide out
somewhere?

Because...they don't? I don't
think you're appreciating how expensive it would be to build an entire
fleet. And Cerberus has about 150 operatives at any given time. Not enough manpower to run a whole fleet. Besides, where is he going to hide a fleet? What's he going to
do with a fleet?

Nobody's answered my question on the previous page regarding how Cerberus is significantly
better than the Council and Alliance, aside from being aware of the
Reapers. We can't even be sure the Council is as unaware as they seem,
because they don't trust you since TIM told them you were working for Cerberus now.

jgordon11 wrote...

I always felt that although perceived as this horrible how you could ever justify that terrorist organization, in ME2 you are able to actually see a completely different side to it. The only other part of Cerberus is their super soldier projects and biotic tests, which given are a definitely crossing hte line. That makes the player come into the game already bias towards the group. [...] In the end it is Cerberus, yes evil cerberus, who believes in what Shepard represents so they revive him, they fund him, give him a ship, a crew and give him free room to operate to get the job done with minimal interference to stop the collectors and stop millions of human lives.

Cerberus doesn't believe in Shepard in the slightest. TIM ressurects Shepard because he/she is useful. Also, 'free room to operate' =! putting bugs all over the ship and railroading Shepard into quests.

And no, you don't get to see a 'completely different side' of them during ME2. All of Cerberus's ops are micromanaged by one person: TIM. He is directly responsible for assassinating Kahoku, feeding at least two units of Alliance soldiers to thresher maws, feeding a colony to thresher maws, purposely exposing humans to eezo to make biotics, torturing and drugging young children, assassinating Alliance admirals, exposing a colony to thorian spores, turning a colony into husks, and unleashing the rachni on Alliance listening posts.

In the end while they have done some terrible things to simply judge them as this all evil terrorist group is very simple minded. They arn't the nice guys, but sometimes to do the right thing you need to do some wrong things. I believe that is the whole point of making you work for them b/c while they do have questionable motives they are doing what needs to be done. In the words of the Illusive Man "Salvation comes with a cost. Judge us not by our methods, but what we seek to accomplish." Basically it comes done to if you believe in Machiavellian ideas, which i do. And that is why i support Cerberus.

How many of the things in the above list were 'necessary'?

And consider this: out of the five experimental projects above (husks, thorian, rachni, biotics, thresher maws), how many were successful, as in 'they produced useful data and a viable result'? Exactly zero. They do not 'get sh*t done'.

Awesome post.

[huntrrz]

JohnnyDollar wrote...

What actions to protect human colonies did the Alliance and Council make?   

I can't believe I'm actually doing this...

But I'm gonna defend the Alliance and Council on this point.

The colonies being attacked are OUTSIDE THEIR JURISDICTION.  BY THEIR OWN CHOICE.  The Council and Alliance have NO AUTHORITY to interfere UNLESS the attacks represent a clear and present danger to their own territories.

THAT'S where they fail their citizens, by too eagerly dismissing the possible threat.  But it's really easy for an overtaxed government with an overtaxed military to write the attacks off as 'increased pirate activity'.  When the number of attacks or the repeated suspicious reports of 'absolutely no traces of attack' reached a certain threshold it was criminally negligent not to investigate - but not until then.

So the question is, who has been monitoring the colonies and how accurate has their intelligence been?  (And if one agency is the chokepoint for all this information, has it been compromised?)  We've seen information being intercepted and withheld by Noveria in ME1 and TIM in ME2 - who's to say the Shadow Broker or the Reapers hadn't been manipulating intel and NO ONE saw enough critical information to make the 'obvious' conclusions?

[Raphael diSanto]

Just a side point.

If you let the council die in ME1, and appoint Udina to lead the new all-human council, you don't even get your Spectre status back in ME2.

My current RenShep just got flipped the bird by Udina on that matter.

Modifié par Raphael diSanto, 11 mars 2010 - 04:53 .

[Akeashar]

On one hand we have people describing Cerberus as Omnicompetent in ME2 for resurrecting you, and setting you out to Save the Galaxy, on the other hand we have people (often the same) describing them as Omnifail because of the experiments that you shut down in ME1, and the Reaper IFF in ME2. We also have Cerberus being a dangerous, but not necessarily incompetent, group in Ascension.

Heres a concept, there more that Cerberus does that we don't know about. Some of them fail, some of them work, but for the most part we never hear about what they've done. I greatly doubt Cerberus would have been active as long as it has, and continued to have backing provided to them by private backers, if they never had anything to show of it and were simply the universal equivalent of Dr Claw.

[DMC12]

I personally support the cause and beliefs of Cereberus, which is why I'm annoyed at the end of the game. It seems like there's no option for continuing to be apart of Cerberus, regardless of whether or not you gave the station to TIM. Infact, I find Shepard to come off as hypocritical to say something along the lines of, "This station is too valuable to destroy" when you agree with the radiation pulse option, only to suddenly grow a conscience in the next 30 minutes; spouting off something anti-Cerberus to TIM before the final cut-scene.

I was looking forward to a more Darth Vader-Emperor style of interaction at the end, but apparently not...

[ODST 3]

Only one of my Shepards likes them. The rest all blow the station and leave with a big bang.

[Terraneaux]

Akeashar wrote...

On one hand we have people describing Cerberus as Omnicompetent in ME2 for resurrecting you, and setting you out to Save the Galaxy, on the other hand we have people (often the same) describing them as Omnifail because of the experiments that you shut down in ME1, and the Reaper IFF in ME2. We also have Cerberus being a dangerous, but not necessarily incompetent, group in Ascension.
Heres a concept, there more that Cerberus does that we don't know about. Some of them fail, some of them work, but for the most part we never hear about what they've done. I greatly doubt Cerberus would have been active as long as it has, and continued to have backing provided to them by private backers, if they never had anything to show of it and were simply the universal equivalent of Dr Claw.

The point is that Cerberus makes mistakes too, and in fact Shepard (and the player) has his/her head screwed on better than TIM.  'Trusting' Cerberus is only gonna lead to more situations like the Collector Ship mission where TIM endangers the entire galaxy because he is pathologically unable to agree to give up any sort of power.  It was dangerous to work with Cerberus for the duration of ME2, even, since they were using Shepard for all he was worth to both sully his/her reputation and buff theirs.  In addition, as has been mentioned, they don't have the resources to fight a threat on the scale of the Reapers.  You've gathered some intel over the course of ME2, great, AFAIK we still don't  have what it takes to deal with the fact that one of their ships is equal to a fleet of ours.  Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if TIM was hoping to use the Reaper base to somehow transmigrate himself into the human Reaper and survive the impending armageddon that way, selling out the rest of humanity in the process.  

[Relshar]

My shepards will not give Cerberus the collector station as the main character says. They can beat the reapers without loosing their souls to the reaper technology which is what Cerberus is going to do.

Also I support peace with the geth and Quarrians and yet blow up the Hertic geth due to their ability to share memories. Which could be bad for the geth as a whole.

Also I have the Rachni to help me latter on.

[HAGA NAGA]

No. They are poo-poo heads and doo-doo brains.