I just started Mass Effect 2 and don’t want to risk spoiling it by going into the huge thread but I felt the need to say “Really?”.
Illusive Man is the best name they could come up with? The game is awesome so far but it’s extremely jarring to hear that name coming out of the characters mouths because it doesn’t even sound like a proper noun. It sounds like they are describing him.
I need to go talk to Illusive Man.
Hey Illusive Man, what’s up?
Please tell me there is a reason for this and it makes sense later?
One of the codex entries explains where it comes from, but other than an implicit desire to maintain his anonymity, there’s nothing that explains why they couldn’t come up with something a bit less awkward.
That said, Sheen does the character so well that it still ends up working.
To sum the Codex up, he’s called that way because A) the Alliance brass isn’t sure whether he exists or not and B) his entire modus operandi is based around planting illusions around, both about his activities and his goals, and even whether or not he really exists or his operations are merely happen-stance.
I do agree, however, that the name is fairly weak. An elite shadowy operative needs a more dignified codename. Something cleaner. Something more impressive. Something like… Deep Throat :p.
At the very least, you’d think they’d have named him the damned ELUSIVE Man instead. Yes, Illusive is technically apt: but it’s also awkward and somewhat misleading. He’s not illusory, and frankly, any organization whose plans revolve around “feed humans to Thresher Maws” and “locate dead guy, bring back to life, send him off to save galaxy in his rebuild starship with you logo spraypainted on the side” has no business being called illusive.
Perhaps they could have called him “Blatantly Obvious Man” instead.
ETA : I do disagree, however, on the elusive/illusive thing. Elusive would mean the Alliance knew about him, but he keeps dodging them and never gets caught. Illusive means a much deeper level of secrecy - as is, the Alliance is fairly convinced Cerberus doesn’t exist anymore.
Yeah, I agree. “Elusive Man” sounds like a hunted man on the run. While this description is true to some extent for the Illusive Man, it’s not the image he’d like to project, and therefore would not be the name he would adopt for himself (note that he even signs his emails “The Illusive Man”). TIL prides himself on having created an organization that commands immense power under great secrecy, to the point that few even believe they exist - to most, Cerberus is an illusion, a bogeyman. And that’s exactly the way TIL wants it. To be called “elusive” would be to admit that he’s a criminal in hiding, rather than (as he sees himself) a crusader fighting oppression.
Personally, I thought the Codex entry was a nicely elegant way to explain the odd choice of words, as the phrase makes more sense if it originated as an indefinite (“an illusive man,” as the Codex states, rather than “The Illusive Man”). That TIL would then adopt the name made perfect sense to me - he’s exactly the kind of guy who would derive great satisfaction from twisting his enemies’ derisive words into a name to be feared and respected.
Which is ridiculous, because they rebuilt the friggin normandy, revived shepherd and probably did a lot more expensive stuff along the way.
Oh, and it’s not like they paint their logo on their ship or anything.
I don’t think the Alliance is unaware of Cerberus’ presence, the thing is, they have no idea how big they are or exactly what they’re doing at any time. That’s the point behind illusive.
I think after EDI’s memory taboos are removed she reveals that there’s only like 150 or so active Cerberus agents including the human crew officially registered with the Lazarus Cell (this would mean that if you did the sidequests in ME1 you thinned a significant portion of their numbers, since there had to have been at least 50 people killed in that). The feeling that I got throughout the game is that most people aware of Cerberus in the galaxy think they’re a lot more powerful than that (probably due to TIM’s far-reaching influence). So they’re feared, but small enough that they can do a lot without really being noticed.
Keep in mind, any covert operation is not just the sum total of it’s “members,” but it’s willing and unwilling (or unknowing) acomplices which can include informants, janitors, patrons, ship yard workers, etc.
As **Jragon **noted, that was a bit of aaah creative exaggeration on my part - why, even your good buddy Anderson mentions he can’t much talk to you anymore because you work for Cerberus. So, they do know Cerberus exists… but not its real scope. Or its actual goals now that it’s more or less gone rogue (remember, Cerberus started as a sort of Alliance wetworks team). They’re kind of like Al Qaeda that way : everyone knows them, but nobody *really *does.
As for painting their logo on the ship and uniforms, that’s the beauty of it : you, and the Normandy, are Cerberus’s big PR win. “Shepard, Savior of the Galaxy and all around Big Damn Human Hero is working for us ! When the Alliance dropped the ball, Cerberus damn well picked it up ! So we can’t be all bad !”. It would make much less sense to have you skulking around all covert like. After all, the PR angle is part of the reason why they spent billions zombie-ing your ass in the first place. And besides, Shepard doesn’t do covert. Least not *my *Shepard
ETA : and while everyone’s attention is focused on Shepard and his shiny new Normandy, more discreet operations can be run in his wake, unknown and unwatched…
His name and the name of his organisation comes from the First Contact war with the turians. A pamphlet was written calling for a ‘Cerberus’ to guard the Charon Relay. The Alliance dismissed it as a xenophobic screed written by ‘an illusive man’. So the name stuck.
What annoys me more is that we can’t call him out. My main Shep is a Sole Survivor - if you dig a bit deeper in the first game you find out that Cerberus was behind the attack on Akuze which wiped out Shep’s unit. Later on they did the same thing to Kohoku’s men. The only reference you get to this is if you complete the Sole Survivor background quest in a certain way - Toombs emails you asking what the hell you’re thinking and there’s a galactic news bulletin about investigations into Cerberus if you convince Toombs to let the Cerberus scientist live to put them on trial.
It makes no sense whatsoever for a Sole Survivor Shep to work with Cerberus. If I wasn’t bound by the script I’d have washed my hands of Cerberus (with blood) and gone straight back to the Citadel and Spectre duties, which would mainly be proving the damn Reapers exist.
And that’s another thing - why can’t you alert the Council to the presence of the 37 million year old derelict Reaper? That sure as shit ain’t a geth construct, and has the same design as Sovvie. Also; why if Sovvie is a geth construct would Saren (and Matriach Boobnezia) call it a Reaper - the Council says it’s to manipulate the geth, but if the geth built it this wouldn’t work. Why would the Protheans create a backdoor to the Citadel from Ilos to sabotage it if Vigil isn’t telling the truth ? Why would the Prothean beacons show their destruction and a ship just like Sovvie (get the asari councillor to mind-meld with you like Liara if they don’t believe you)? The stupidity, it burns!
Yeah, I agree somewhat - while you can be rude to him, you can’t out and out tell him to go fuck a sheep until the very end. Then again, you *are *flying his boat, in a zone that’s technically well outside of Council space and jurisdiction : remember, the reason Saren was so hard to catch back in ME1 was that he’d ran right here, in the Terminus systems, where he was for all intents and purposes outside your reach, as sending a fleet to the Terminus would have been considered as a de facto act of war by the loose confederation of raiders and colonists there.
Besides, your Spectre status has been more or less revoked by your, um, death. Whether or not the Council reinstates you depends on your actions in ME1, and even then it’s only a title, which doesn’t have impact on gameplay, since again you have no jurisdiction where most of the game takes place.
I suppose you could pretend that you’re really a double agent infiltrating Cerberus. Even though nothing in the game makes it apparent, that’s how I played it anyway. I fully intend, come ME3, to turn every scrap of data I’ve got over to the Alliance, if not the Council.
As for Akuze, I take it to be the same thing as Jack’s story : a Cerberus team gone rogue-er, the left hand not knowing what the right hand does or did. Of course, considering how much of a bullshit artist TIM is, Jack’s closure is most probably bogus anyway… shrug
But even if it’s unsavoury to say the least, working with Cerberus (or rather, using Cerberus’ money, equipment, contacts and leverage) is a means to an end : doing something about the Reaper threat and saving the human colonies being abducted by the Collectors, when the Council doesn’t give a shit, nevermind giving you (as a Spectre) free rein and resources to pursue your obsession, you post-traumatic victim you
At least, that’s how my Paragon played it : I hardly gave TIM the time of day, chewed him out as often as possible when he fucked me over, and was in it only to further my own ends, never missing an occasion to tell *my *crew not to trust Cerberus.
But it’s deep in the Terminus systems. Council still can’t officially go there. Even the single council “advisor” (read : Ashley/Kaiden) sent out to Horizon caused something of a local political shitstorm… Besides, Cerberus never told them it was there, did they ? And according to the wiki, the system it’s in (Hawking Eta) is very dangerous to navigate in as it’s too close to the galaxy’s center, so it makes some sense that it wouldn’t have been thoroughly explored in the first place.
The hulk was entirely destroyed after your visit in any case. So even if you swore to them up and down that there was a millenia old Reaper shell out there, they have no reason to believe you, especially with you being a known “Reaper crank” ;).
Had you told them before going, they would have brushed it off as more of your nonsense - they certainly wouldn’t have risked causing a war to investigate your hysteria. The Alliance might have, and then they might have not, as they have no means to know for sure whether or not you’re with Cerberus or not… and thus can’t be sure you’re still as trustworthy as you were. For all they know, Cerberus could have scrambled your brains when they remade you. Or, worse scenario, they could have closed it off for investigation, and not allowed you to take the IFF you need to save the colonists… which you know you need to do fast.
There’s no denying the Council’s either in deep denial, or even *more *two-faced than immediately appears. However, this idea of theirs isn’t particularly nonsensical at the time they put it forward : the geth *might *have built an idol to their Reaper gods (Sovvie) and worshipped that, as a sort of techno-cargo cult.
How Saren could have taken control of it from under them is another story, of course…
Well, a mass relay going directly into the Citadel from one’s home world is eminently practical for all sorts of reasons. Besides, if the Council still believes the Protheans built it, then it makes even more sense : that would be how they sent materials to construct the Citadel in the first place, by building it around that central relay.
IIRC, they never got to talk to Vigil in any case, as it had shut down when their own teams reached Ilos. So, as in many things, they only have your reckless human word for it.
Legend ? Religion ? After all, our own cultures are built, in part, on the notion of the Apocalypse… doesn’t mean it happened ;).
Other than that, it could also have been their prediction of that time Citadel would be attacked by the geth ship Sovereign. Or a manipulation by Saren, who got hold of the beacons before you did.
Aye, any time someone called me on working for Cerberus I would emphatically deny it - my main Shep (a paragon, with a bit of renegade) sees it more as using their resources and intelligence.
On Pragia the scientists say that TIM has been asking questions, but that’s one facility - the thresher maws weren’t an isolated incident. Both on Akuze and with Kohoku’s men, marines were wiped out and it had Cerberus fingerprints all over it. Both were fairly recent, too - and EDI says that there are very few cells, so TIM can keep an eye out. So I doubt a Sole Survivor Shep would be fobbed off by the ‘it’s just a splinter cell’ quite so easy. It’s particularly egregious since you can ask Miranda about the experiments with Rachni and Thorian Creepers, to which she responds that they would essentially be valuable cannon fodder and save human lives. But Shep stays silent on the matter of his fifty dead marines. This amusing cartoon sums up my feelings on the glaring oversight.
Agree 100% on this, although I did save the base. Homefully ME3 doesn’t take this as an affirmation of support for Cerberus…
True, but in ME1 the Council accepts Tali’s omnitool recording of Saren as incontrovertible proof of his treason. In ME2 you park the Normandy SR-2 right next to the thing, and Shep can activate work logs as further proof of indoctrination (confirming what he says about Saren being a puppet of Sovvie - and why Liara’s mum followed him). Plus you can leave the thing there (as I tend to do, for reasons that become apparent) and simply ask them to send another Spectre to have a look and take measurements. They don’t have any qualms about sending Spectres out there - it’s the reason Shepard was made a Spectre in the first place.
That’s only after the IFF infects the ship. The ship still has the ‘unmistakable profile of a Reaper’ even before you board. Being so ancient, and resembling Sovereign in form and function, it is proof positive to the Council that the Reapers aren’t a product of the geth.
When I spoke to Captain Bailey and Avina about Sovvie’s attack and got the geth line I initially thought it was just a cover story for the public. Which would actually be fairly sensible, you don’t want to cause panic and chaos with talk about ancient genocidal horrors. When I reached the Council and heard that they believed it I was astonished - with the lives of trillions at stake you’d have thought the Council would at least conduct a thorough investigation into the worst case scenario, if not covertly prepare for it. The turian councillor in particular annoyed me - going from “We owe you a great personal debt” to “This proves how fragile your mental state is!”. If you take Legion to the Citadel he says outright that the geth could not construct Sovereign, but this is dismissed out of hand by the usually reasonable salarian. Your idea (confirmed by Anderson) that the truth is just too horrific to face seems likely.
Indeed - as is the actual course of the Battle of the Citadel. Sovvie could only be destroyed after Saren’s uberhusk was defeated. This raises two questions for the Council - why on earth would Saren, the leader according to them, allow himself to be huskified by Sovereign (he also topped himself in my game - also not something he would do, on the cusp of victory - unless it was he who was being manipulated), and secondly - if they dismiss Shep’s account of the final battle, why did Sovvie’s kinetic barriers suddenly drop?
The asari councillor says a few times in ME1 and (I think) ME2 that they believe Shepard believes it, and is not lying. The only alternative is that Vigil was lying - but this makes no sense given the presence of the conduit. Vigil says that, as the mass relays were Reaper constructs (which is confirmed by Sovereign on Virmire - and Legion in ME2). The Reapers shut them down after the invasion, which required the Prothean-built one-way Conduit to the Citadel, to sabotage the mechanism of invasion. This is further confirmed by Saren and Sovereign’s attack on the Citadel - why are they activating the Citadel’s master control unit? They devastate the Council fleet in the first attack, so there is no military necessity. It is like Vigil says - to reactivate the mass relay into dark space.
This goes back to Vigil’s word. He directly states that the beacons were a warning sent out across the Prothean Empire, one that arrived too late. So the Council can believe that Vigil is lying - which he would have no reason to (Saren didn’t know of Vigil - Shepard only stopped for a chat after Vigil threw up a barrier and was right on Saren’s tail - racing to the Conduit), and we have evidence to the contrary, or Shepard is lying - which even the Council doesn’t accuse you of.
There’s one more piece of evidence that you should be able to tell the Council - that the Collectors are Protheans. EDI figures it out in five minutes, and Mordin elaborates - “No minds, replaced by tech. No digestive tract, replaced by tech. No souls, replaced by tech!”
EDI says the Collectors come from a Prothean colony in the Styx Theta cluster. Obviously an archaeological and dated site. The geth only came along roughly 300 years ago - there’s no way they could manipulate the Protheans (plus there is no clear link between the geth and Collectors - which you would expect if they were pawns of geth). Instead, their modus operandi falls squarely into Reaper territory - they are harvesting human colonies, as the Reapers harvested Protheans.
I also wish there was an option to inform the Alliance or Council and hand the Collector base over to them, more evidence the geth aren’t involved, since the Collector base is ancient.
Since the Citadel is a Reaper construct part of me wonders if the Council has not been at least partly indoctrinated. It would explain their complete stupidity…[/spoiler]
I think that a lot of the limitations have to do with the juggling act of telling a story, writing the dialog, getting the voice acting, doing the animation, etc… It’s taxing enough to create the basic plot line with various actions that Shepherd can take to react to/influence them, it’s a bit more difficult to also create an entire ‘second game’ where Shepherd tells TIM to go fuck himself, takes the Normandy II and goes ‘rogue’, tries to convince the council (or just Anderson) and work with them, etc…
Not that it wouldn’t be fun, and maybe we’ll see that when games can synthesize voice responses without having to have full voice-actor-stuff on file or wha thave you, but I’d wager that the constraints of the story were generated by the constraints of the financial project of designing the game itself.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a great game, these are just relative nitpicks in the story. If every possibility was voice acted, programmed, animated and whatnot it’d probably never get released.
Not exactly : they accept her recording *coupled *with the fact that Saren was demonstrably trying to kill her over it. The recording alone probably wouldn’t have done the trick - but then again the Council going from “Saren a traitor ? Preposterous !!” to “OMAGAD traitor !” in the space of 10 minutes of game time always kind of stuck in my craw
Well, yes and no. I mean, yes, I too left that mission off until the very end for gamey reasons, however I believe in the “real” Mass Effect world, getting that IFF and opening the Omega 4 relay would have been a high urgency task for Shepard - every day that passes is one that the Collectors’ hostages spend in captivity, or worse. By comparison, finding Jacob’s daddy on a 10 year old crash site or blowing up a derelict Cerberus facility to get in the pants of the resident sociopath isn’t exactly top priority, wouldn’t you agree ?
But that presumes they’d *want *to investigate in the first place. Besides, even if they accepted the existence of the Reapers at the beginning of time, they could still opine that Sovereign was the very last of them, and not accept the idea that there’s a massive Reaper fleet out there, poised to strike.
Well, it could still be part of a knowing cover-up on their part : a hint to shut. the. fuck. up. about it. Or maybe they reckon that, since “they” shot down Sovereign, they have little to fear about more Reapers.
Alternatively, if Shepard let the former Council die (which, BTW, is a mondo sensible option even for a Paragon - there’s little sense in sacrificing half of the Alliance fleet to save the Destiny Ascension instead of concentrating all fire on Sovereign and save thousands more lives…), then they have another reason to mistrust Shepard’s Reaper story : he’s evidently anti-Council and biased towards humanity, and a galaxy-wide arms build-up to prepare for a hypothetical Reaper invasion would entail relaxing or even lifting the military restrictions placed on humans altogether.
If there are no Reapers at all, that’s a net gain for humanity, egg on the Council’s faces and a galaxy-wide war waiting to happen.
Turians are assholes :). But, yeah, the thing is, if the Council is determined NOT to believe in incoming Chtulhian monsters, then it’s relatively easy for them to construct another narrative, using the available data selectively and a bit, OK, a LOT of undue skepticism in order to disbelieve in them.
Or they could be indoctrinated.
After all, they spend most of their time in the Citadel tower, which is the place where the Core is and also where most of the Keepers congregate. And Keepers are essentially Reaper tech on legs. Who knows ? Maybe they emit some low level indoctrination fields ? Or maybe allow some Reapers to possess people from across the galaxy, like Harbinger did to the Collector general ? That would certainly go towards explaining why nobody ever *really *wondered what the hell was the deal with them… Not a very likely scenario, but I like it
For moar powerrrrr, evidently. After all, he’d already grafted a geth arm on himself for some reason. Allowing the geth to further cyber him is only taking it one step further (remember, at that point the husks and Dragon’s Teeth are still believed to be geth tech).
[Turian councillor]Why, by the valiant efforts of our gallant fleet, of course. It was only a matter of time before the combined might of the entire galaxy’s armada overloaded that geth monstrosity’s shields.
Or possibly Shepard’s team put the whammy on it some way or other. It doesn’t really matter : it’s dea… destroyed, and all is well. Dismissed. DISMISSED, I SAY ![/TC]
Yeah, like they’re going to trust geths :). As for Vigil, well, maybe Shepard didn’t understand well. Or misremembers. Or Saren tampered with it. Yes, you and I know he didn’t - but he could have, he was on Ilos long before Shepard and had a vested interest in propagating the Reaper myth.
While the initial attack caught the Council fleet by surprise, the timely arrival of the Alliance fleet turned the tides against the attackers : clearly a simple and direct invasion would have failed. Even the geth couldn’t fight the entire known galaxy by themselves. Especially not with their forces already well depleted thanks to the efforts of the Council’s crack Salarian team back on Virmire.
Thus, Saren needed a way to prevent the Citadel from closing down before Sovereign could get inside, then to close the arms after it. Giving his infiltrated geth army, supported by Sovereign’s guns, all the time they needed to wipe out all C-Sec resistance inside the station. By controlling the hub of the Universe, Saren would then have, in effect, controlled the entire galaxy, possibly even found a way to control the entire mass relay network thanks to his vast knowledge of the Protheans, gained from the Thorian.
Which is why he sought that secret relay directly into the Citadel, left over from the days when it was built.
See ? Occam’s razor, no need for some ancient-mechanical-god rubbish !
Yup. But again, there’s no concrete evidence left after your passage.
Well, EDI could be wrong. Besides, it’s an AI ! That’s completely illegal, Shepard ! Not only that, but it’s an AI made from bits of *Sovereign. *She’s probably a damn geth !
Plus, assuming the AI’s right, the geth *could *have stumbled uponthat one last, forgotten bastion of the Protheans at any time during those 300 years and huskified them all, or allied with them for all we know. No organic has ever come back from Omega 4, but synthetics might have. Who knows, right ? After all, the Collector base is chock full of that same technology we found in Sovereign’s debris.
Which is geth technology, as you know.
Or it could have been a plot to destroy humanity, one colony at a time. To avenge Saren. Who was a geth leader. And the geth were allied with or had enslaved the Collectors. Makes perfect sense.
Meh. That thing’s obviously trouble, and anyone coming anywhere near it is going to get indoctrinated to hell and back. Or will try to build their own Reapers, just because they can and have a fully functional Reaper factory. Great news for whoever gets turned into goo for the “greater good”, I’m sure.
Which is why that base is better off destroyed ; if a “BTW, fuck you sideways” to TIM in the form of a giant fireball wasn’t reason enough :p.
[/quote]
Since the Citadel is a Reaper construct part of me wonders if the Council has not been at least partly indoctrinated. It would explain their complete stupidity…
[/quote]
Heh, hadn’t read that bit when I made that supposition. Great minds think alike ![/spoiler]
They’ve only got Tali and Shep’s word for that though - which in ME2 (along with the rest of your crew) isn’t enough for them. Shame Saren’s hologram wasn’t there the second time, would have been amusing to see his face…
Ha, well I did rush to it, but after the loyalty missions (the game kinda gives you a hint in para-Sheps ‘we need to build the team’ dialogue choice), but it is meta-gaming. Still, there’s no reason the Council should dismiss the readings gathered by Shep’s omnitool (he uses it to activate the work log recordings) or the sensors of the Normandy itself.
They have only Shep’s word for this in ME1, but Shep has no reason to lie - when asked if he is the last of his kind Sovvie replies that his numbers will ‘darken the skies of every world’ - judging by ME2’s end he ain’t kidding. The Council would probably dismiss this as Saren’s ‘manipulation’, which means they think Shepard’s judgement was compromised throughout ME1 - which is not supported by evidence. Unless you’re an uber-renegade monster Shep’s judgement and choices are sound - his choices ultimately save the Citadel.
I would actually be behind the Council if this was their game, revealing the truth would probably cause mass panic. If they said to Shep ‘Yeah, the Reapers - publicly we’re denying their existence to maintain order, but we’re covertly building our fleet and attaching thanix cannons to every ship we have,’ this would be quite sensible. But they flat out deny - to a Spectre, one of their elite operatives, that they even exist.
My main Shep saved the Council on the basis that the Destiny Ascension, the most powerful dreadnought in Citadel space, would be an asset against the Reapers (it was caught with its pants down in the Battle of the Citadel, the codex notes that dreadnoughts are not built for ‘knife-fight’ ranges). I was somewhat disappointed that the ‘human-led’ Council dismissed the champion of humanity, but even so - Shepard himself, unless he has stock in an arms company, stands nothing to gain by making it up. Neither does humanity, since the other species would build-up too. No net gain, we’re back where we began.
They’re sceptical throughout ME1, until Sovvie shows up and hands their asses to them. The asari councillor even mentions that Shep saved the lives of billions from “Sovereign and the Reapers.” Neither do they say a word to object when Anderson (or Udina if you’re insane) gives a speech about driving them back into dark space. Nothing has happened in the intervening years to change their minds, apart from the lack of a Reaper fleet - which makes sense, as 2 years will be nothing to them. By the end of ME2, you have proof that the Collectors were involved in a new Reaper plot, building a replacement for the late Sovvie. Joker hands you a datapad with Harbinger at the end - EDI’s obviously extracted data from the Collector base which directly links them to the Reapers. Show them that datapad! Or better yet, show them the Reaper fleet. Boy, is that turian’s face gonna be red…or rather dead. I’m not saving him again!
Udina spends a lot of time up there too…maybe that explains why he’s such an ass. Nah, he was probably always like that.
Yep - until we find them on Horizon, the derelict Reaper and the Collector ship - none of which have anything to do with the geth. Well, maybe one geth on the derelict Reaper…
We’ve seen husks on Eden Prime - they aren’t something an intelligent, charismatic Spectre would willingly do to himself, as it turns the recipient into a mindless…well, husk.
“But councillor, I have several eye-witnesses…”
“DISMISSED!”
Legion has no reason to lie (can geth even lie? Their collective nature speaks against it - every program would have to be devoted to deception…anyway…), and a little digging will prove his story of two separate geth factions is correct. They probably wouldn’t care to do the digging, but if they believe geth can create Sovereign - a monster that brushed aside turian cruisers like yesterday’s garbage - it’s worth investigating.
But Shep too has the Cipher, the entire knowledge of the Protheans, in his head. He of all people should understand the beacons and Vigil.
The Conduit itself is evidence for the Reapers - Tali’s recording states that after the beacon on Eden Prime Saren is ‘one step closer to finding the Conduit…and one step closer to the return of the Reapers…’
So they’re lying to each other? The Council can’t dismiss this as a Xanatos Gambit from Saren, since the recording got his ass convicted of treason.
You gunned down dozens on Horizon, thanks to Mordin’s unique countermeasures. Before, the Collectors left no traces at their attack sites and were ordinarily so rare that some didn’t believe they existed (hmm…sounds familiar!). On Horizon the walls are smeared with their blood…goo…whatever, and they left behind numerous pods and whatnot. DNA can be taken from any of it and linked with the Protheans.
But no geth whatsoever. The asari, salarians, turians and other sentients have been star trekkin’ for millennia, all the while finding nothing to suggest they survived. Liara studied them for decades and came to the accepted conclusion that they’d been mysteriously wiped out 50,000 years ago. The Omega 4 relay has been swallowing ships for centuries before the geth came along - presumably the Collectors themselves have, too. Dating the Collector base should confirm that. Although dating Sovvie should have revealed its age too, so perhaps even that would be useless…
Except the heretic geth on Eden Prime, the Citadel and numerous captured starships simply shoot people. The Collectors abduct and experiment (even before ME2). Their two MOs are completely different.
My main hates Cerberus too, but had to but aside this hatred - if the Collector base goes boom we’re no better off than when we started. You can meta-game and assume that BioWare wouldn’t screw paraSheps out of their happy ending, but realistically you can’t assume that any sort of miracle weapon will be pulled out of the bag before the Reapers arrive. Besides which, we know much more about indoctrination now than we did then. Shep and crew have spent time on the Collector base, a derelict Reaper and chasing Sovvie across the galaxy and are no worse for wear.
Organics can reach consensus, despite hardware limitations![/spoiler]
Of course there’s a reason : Shepard’s operating in concert with Cerberus, a known pro-human unethical organization, noted for its duplicity and manipulations. Therefore, any data handed out by them is suspicious, especially if it furthers the human agenda. And even if it doesn’t, well, it could all be a Xanatos gambit by TIM, so best not trust it anyway. Except of course, he might have known that the Council knew that his data wasn’t to be trusted, and [head asplode from Sicilian thinking].
As it is, there are naval restrictions on big ass dreadnoughts : for every one the humans are allowed to build, the Asari get three and the Turians five. Or maybe the other way around, I forget. The point is : human military expansion is kept in serious check.
One assumes that, should the Council recognize the Reaper threat and order an “Oh SHIT” massive, rapid build up of ships to counter them, those restrictions would be removed, allowing humans to build ships up to their full manufacturing capabilities.
Whether the Asari and/or Turians can match or even outpace them is probable (since they’ve been building ships for much longer, and thus presumably have shipyards all over the place), but unknown. In any case, that’s still more relative power for humanity - and we know everyone thinks humanity’s got too much of it, too fast already.
Well, they’d just barely survived the biggest space battle in history. They got carried away, that’s all. Emotions running high, can’t be blamed for a little exuberance. After they’ve had time to cool down and re-examine the facts under a critical eye, it’s become *quite *obvious Sovereign was no Reaper.
Well, there was a huge enemy fleet coming in. Inappropriate to quibble on the details of one’s allies HOLD THE LIIIIIINE! speech, really :). If the humans need to believe in those silly Reaper stories to get their ass in gear, so be it. As long as they do their part.
Well, there’s still the matter of trusting any data coming from A) a Cerberus AI B) built from bits and pieces of a [del]Reaper[/del]geth ship. But yes, agreed, rubbing those idiots’ collective faces in it will be soooo worth it.
When the whole galaxy burns, I’ll be buzzing the Citadel’s traffic control tower, trailing a banner saying “TOLD YOU SO, ASSCLOWNS”.
Not fully huskified, but turning himself into a cyborg through similar, albeit partial implants - as Saren says, giving himself “the strengths of both [synthetics and organics], the weaknesses of neither”. And when he died, his synthetic part kept going for a bit, that’s all.
Which is pretty much what really happened, too, except Saren didn’t exactly choose the implants.
He…It’s a geth. The normal reaction to the idea that they built Sovereign would be to wipe the fuckers out before they make any more of those, which if I’m not mistaken the Council’s more or less ramping up to do while Shepard’s faffing around the Terminus systems. At the very least, the Quarians are, and nobody’s going to object when they do.
So, yes, in the face of the complete annihilation of its species from orbit cuz it’s the only way to be sure, it’d damn well have a reason to lie
OTOH, he’s been zapped in the head by a bunch of ancient bad juju beacons, not to mention been in contact with the consciousness of a plant being thousands of years old. Through the intervention of an Asari ally of Saren’s, no less, who could have done all manner of things to his brainpan.
It’s not that far fetched to believe he could come back a bit… touched from all that.
Remember, that recording was taken from a dead geth, meaning Saren said that in the presence of at least one of them (which in turns means all of them, since they share consciousness). Since the Council believes Saren controlled the geth by manipulating their religious beliefs in the Reapers, to them it means he could have said that for the sole benefit of his audience. As in “Ha HAH ! One step closer to the return of the Reapers !..suckers”
Right, forgot about those.
Hence the possible collusion of the two races some time between Saren’s defeat and now, in a “hey, you’re organic machines, we’re organic machines, we have so much in common ! Here, have those husks of ours and go wreck some shit while we reprogram our entire race, then we’ll give you a hand to finish the job, deal ?”.
The Collectors only started abducting people *en masse *after the defeat of Sovereign, since Harbinger’s plan was to create a new Reaper from the species that had proved strong enough to kill the old, as well as avenging him. It. And, presumably, use that new Reaper to try and send the Citadel signal again.
But prior to that, the Collectors were harmless albeit mysterious tech brokers from far away who made weird requests. The ships vanishing through the Omega 4 relay all got there of their own volition, trying to find out why ships were vanishing in it in the first place.
Even if we, that is the Council, do accept that Collectors = Protheans, it’s neither here nor there to prove the existence of the Reapers, quite the contrary in fact, since now we know that they actually didn’t get completely wiped out, they just moved on beyond our reach.
Presumably to give the young races (which many believe the Protheans created in the first place, esp. the Hanar) some breathing space, observing them from the fringes, and dissecting them from time to time. As mysterious & technologically advanced aliens are wont to, dontcherknow :).
Why they suddenly quit doing that is anyone’s guess, but doesn’t necessarily mean the Reapers are coming.
Their means are different, but their goals could be entwined, since the end result of both is a planet devoid of human life.
No need for a miracle weapon, when you can unite the entire damn galaxy behind you, including the (cured) Krogan, the (ultra-fast breeding) Rachni, the (tech wizards) Geth and the Migrant Fleet, the largest collection of ships in the Universe. Thanks to that Harbinger data collected from the base before it’s destroyed, and EDI’s new anti-Reaper algorythms, it’s also conceivable that Shepard’s team could cook up some anti-indoctrination thingamabob, allowing small teams to invade individual Reapers and dispatch them from the inside out.
Or just the King Reaper, in order to reprogram it to send a disabling signal to the rest of them as the Heretic geth were trying to do… heck, maybe even try to reverse-indoctrinate it, see how it likes *them *apples !
