True, the didn't even seem to rate having a Codex entry in ME1 (though the Terra Firma Party did IIRC - go figure).
Which means we need to go to dialog. Admiral Kohoku is probably the character that has the most to say about them, and this is a direct quote of what he tells us after he finds out Cerberus is behind his team going missing:
"It was a group called Cerberus. An Alliance black ops organisation. Top secret, highest-level security clearance. They vanished a few months ago. Dropped right off the grid. Nobody knew where they went to or what they were up to. They've gone completely rogue, Shepard. They're conducting illegal genetic experiments, trying to create some kind of super soldier. I don't have any proof, but I found the coordinates for one of their research worlds. I'm uploading them with this message. They're completely out of control. Somebody needs to stop them. I've done my part. Now it's up to you. This is... this is probably the last you'll hear from me. Cerberus is after me now. I need to disappear before they find me."
He does say that they were an Alliance black ops organisation, and that they vanished a few months ago. It doesn't actually say that they were still part of the Alliance until a few months ago, but I guess it's implied. And he might not use the word "terrorist" specifically, but I'd say it's a pretty valid term to describe an organisation that's "gone completely rogue", is "conducting illegal genetic experiments", is "completely out of control" and makes an Alliance Admiral fear for his life
That's basically where I was coming from. I wasn't questioning their progression into a terrorist merely that in ME1 it wasn't said that they were terrorists.
You may have guessed that I wasn't happy with the direction ME2 took
Except they would need more than manpower to be the threat they are in ME3, where do they get their ships, weapons, armour and supplies? Without materiel they can have all the men they like, they won't be able to function as an effective military force.
You know how Sanctuary was advertised as this exclusive safe place where the rich and privileged of the galaxy could go and ride out the war?
I'm guessing those people probably had bank accounts.. In fact, I'm guessing there was probably quite a lot in those bank accounts. You know, if having the support of just about every human named being in the game who is rich or politically influential wasn't cutting it.
Also, considering this is a setting where an invisible nanotech device which fits on your hand and is issued to every human colonist can build robots, various types of homing grenades and superheated metal blades in less than a second simply by being installed with the right programming, where a hidden off-the-map research base can be the size of a small city and where every corporation has a private army, why are we assuming that the infrastructure needed to build materiel is particularly difficult to acquire?
Except they would need more than manpower to be the threat they are in ME3, where do they get their ships, weapons, armour and supplies? Without materiel they can have all the men they like, they won't be able to function as an effective military force.
You know how Sanctuary was advertised as this exclusive safe place where the rich and privileged of the galaxy could go and ride out the war?
I'm guessing those people probably had bank accounts.. In fact, I'm guessing there was probably quite a lot in those bank accounts. You know, if having the support of just about every human named being in the game who is rich or politically influential wasn't cutting it.
Except Sanctuary wasn't around before the war, and they have their stupid out of nowhere military from the start of the reaper invasion. Coupled with Sanctuary seeming to appeal primarily to the out of luck and desperate, based on what you hear from people the the game, I doubt many multi billionaires were lining up to be husked. A chief sticking points here is fleet assets. The game does not explain where they come from, but they're unlikely to be built during the war as the timescale is too short. Getting them before the war would have been tricky, as high end military tech would be both hard to get and expensive. If they could afford a fleet like we see in ME3, then the few billion spent reviving Shepard would've been chump change, not the major expenditure Miranda says it was.
Also, considering this is a setting where an invisible nanotech device which fits on your hand and is issued to every human colonist can build robots, various types of homing grenades and superheated metal blades in less than a second simply by being installed with the right programming, where a hidden off-the-map research base can be the size of a small city and where every corporation has a private army, why are we assuming that the infrastructure needed to build materiel is particularly difficult to acquire?
They would need infrastructure to build enough materiel to (kinda) successfully contest a galactic war, which would be a lot.
While the various merc groups and corporate soldiers exist, we are never given the impression that they could stand up to any major race's military in a shooting war, even on a small scale. Even the Skillian Blitz was routed by light Allaince ships, according to Presley in ME1. Not to say there isn't some bullshit rationalisation, but the game gives us nothing, we're just supposed to accept the TIM found a force capable of fighting the full force of the galactic fleets behind the sofa one day.
They're pretty incompetent. None of their experiments ever actually worked; they tried to justify themselves as being about the ends justifying the means, but the ends were all shit anyway:
Akuze: Feeding soldiers to thresher maws to test the effects of feeding soldiers to thresher maws.
Rachni: They got loose and killed all their guys.
Husks: They got loose and killed all their guys.
Project Lazarus: Brought one guy back from the dead, then let the valuable cure data get blown up by mechs. Also, the guy they brought back eventually got loose and killed all their guys.
Pragia: Lost all test subjects bar one, who was too angry and traumatised to ever actually help them. Also, she got loose and killed all their guys.
Overlord: Hooked an autistic man up to the geth network in the most unnecessarily painful way possible, somehow surprised that they got loose and killed all their guys.
Collector Base: Broken clock is right twice a day. Not that it really mattered, since they couldn't save any of the colonists, ended up indoctrinated studying the technology, and they only succeeded because they let Commander Shepard run everything.
Then they got in bed with the Reapers and actually ended up with a string of successes. It just goes to show that these guys are at their best once they just accept the fact that they're stupidly evil and roll with it.
Well to be fair, they had some silver linings with the things they do.
With Lazarus, they sold the Data of the resurrection tech to the black market that pretty much earned back the difference and had Shepard running restoring or salvaging data from the botched or destroyed bases
Pragia: Biotic Implant research useful and Jack was more obsessed with terrorizing the local population and never really struck Cerberus assets until you recruit her.
Overlord: Said research was pivotal in developing the virus that turned the Geth into Reaper Servants
Collector Base: Incompetence was blamed on the Alliance which allowed them set up Sanctuary at Horizon. If they thwarted the attack, Horizon would be still loyal and resistant to Cerberus influence
Here is a paramilitary organisation so big and successful that not one of these failures has slowed them down. Each one is but an annoying set of paperwork to fill out in filing their insurance claims.
And each branch seems nearly entirely autonomous, so they're probably still at it.
Cerberus has a package deal with the employment office, they don't hire soldiers, scientists and engineers seperately.
They get "project deals".
They way it works is that they hire the scientists, engineers and the security detail in one go, with a discount.
By the time ME3 rolls around, they've lost so many scientists to their projects but still have most of their soldiers standing around, so by then they just say "fuck it!" and bet everything on a military victory.
Cerberus in ME3 seems disproportionally powerful, but if you count up what they actually do they're involved in much less conflict than any other faction in the game. Turians, the Alliance, Salarians, Asari, Reaper forces all have fleets roaming around the place exploding each other. Cerberus attacks a research facility via a sleeper-agent and a bunch of mostly civilian settlements.
The main issue is that you fight Cerberus forces about as often as you fight the Reapers and Geth in ME3. But if you take another look, Shepard and Co. are usually the ONLY ones fighting the Cerberus forces in those situations, unlike the massive war sequences on Palaven or Earth.
This doesn't excuse the lack of cohesive explanations, but it's a good thing to consider nonetheless.
Cerberus in ME3 seems disproportionally powerful, but if you count up what they actually do they're involved in much less conflict than any other faction in the game. Turians, the Alliance, Salarians, Asari, Reaper forces all have fleets roaming around the place exploding each other. Cerberus attacks a research facility via a sleeper-agent and a bunch of mostly civilian settlements.
The main issue is that you fight Cerberus forces about as often as you fight the Reapers and Geth in ME3. But if you take another look, Shepard and Co. are usually the ONLY ones fighting the Cerberus forces in those situations, unlike the massive war sequences on Palaven or Earth.
This doesn't excuse the lack of cohesive explanations, but it's a good thing to consider nonetheless.
At least they explain where all the foot soldiers are coming from. They were a little too common, but I suppose it's better than fighting nothing but husks the whole game. Considering Cerberus are basically the only group sided with the Reapers, who spend most of the war dominating everyone else, I like to think they get all their equipment by scavenging whatever the Reapers leave behind after their attacks.
Like I said earlier this creates some other big questions that don't have answers (most notably, why in hell resurrect Shepard?!?) but it's all there in the comics and novels.
Resurrecting Shepard makes a degree of sense, Harbinger immediately targeted Shepard after Sovereign was destroyed, then attempted to retrieve the remains, so presumably they wanted Shepard as an asset to use against the rest of the galaxy. It stands to reason that if Shepard could foil a Reaper that's never had a problem thousands of time before, the rest of the galaxy wouldn't stand a chance against him/her.
Of course putting non-indoctrinated agents in command of Shepard and letting them all go for a jog round the galaxy beforehand as a sort of test run against your previous agents of doom may have been a mistake, but even the Reapers were dealing with a situation they'd never faced before.
NortherWolf said:
Thanks, made me laugh out loud. +1 Mind if I use that as a quote?
The Illusive Man was indoctrinated at the end of the First Contact War, decades before the events of the Mass Effect games. That happens in the comics, and it's not explicitly mentioned in the games, but it's established canon. It's not much of a leap from there to work out that Cerberus has always been controlled by the Reapers.
And how many people do you think cares or even bothers with the ME comics/novels? I'm even surprised they even bothered trying to make it cannon. ME might have been better off without as well
There's a conversation in the Citadel DLC when Shepard, EDI, Joker and a couple of others sit around listing all of Cerberus's projects that ended with the subjects getting out of control and killing all their guys.
It ends with someone pointing out that, hey, at least they brought Shepard back to life. To which Shepard replies, "Yep, then I ditched them and started killing all their guys."
Good on you sir. You just suceeded in making me want to honestly buy Bioware DLC. You have suceeded where Biowares PR-team failed. Might i suggest you seek gainfull employment with their PR department?
There's a conversation in the Citadel DLC when Shepard, EDI, Joker and a couple of others sit around listing all of Cerberus's projects that ended with the subjects getting out of control and killing all their guys.
It ends with someone pointing out that, hey, at least they brought Shepard back to life. To which Shepard replies, "Yep, then I ditched them and started killing all their guys."
Good on you sir. You just suceeded in making me want to honestly buy Bioware DLC. You have suceeded where Biowares PR-team failed. Might i suggest you seek gainfull employment with their PR department?
Take this with a grain of salt, since I'm a known Bioware apologist, but, well... if you've ever enjoyed a Mass Effect game then you really owe it to yourself to play the Citadel DLC.
It's basically several hours of concentrated fan service (the good kind, not the anime panty shot kind) and more in-jokes than you can shake a stick at.
Why? because you fought like 30 of them on Mars? That's a military now?
Most of Cerberus actions (like invading Eden Prime and raiding Grissom Academy) are based on acquiring new subjects for integration. Do you think those were the only missions where they were doing that?
It's also clear, both from ME2 and ME3, that the actions of the council and alliance leadership in denying the existence of the Reapers have served to drive up Cerberus' recruitment.
Megalodon said:
Coupled with Sanctuary seeming to appeal primarily to the out of luck and desperate, based on what you hear from people the the game, I doubt many multi billionaires were lining up to be husked.
Except, as revealed routinely in dialogue. It cost a lot of money to go there which is why not everyone is shipping out. Where was that money being paid to again?
Considering Rupe Elkoss is envious of the profit margins on such a scheme, it's obviously making big damn money.
Megalodon said:
If they could afford a fleet like we see in ME3, then the few billion spent reviving Shepard would've been chump change, not the major expenditure Miranda says it was.
As pointed out in ME1, developing the Normandy SR-1 cost as much as a dreadnought. In ME2, Cerberus not only replicated that feat but improved on the design enormously. They clearly have money and shipbuilding facilities already.
Sure, there's a difference in scale, but then if I had a machine which made people loyal slaves I'm pretty sure I could use it to get things I wanted too.
They would need infrastructure to build enough materiel to (kinda) successfully contest a galactic war, which would be a lot.
My point is that the specifics of mass production in Mass Effect is never really dealt with. Why assume, for example, that you need a special factory to build tanks rather than.. you know, commandeering a civilian auto factory and reprogramming it with the (presumably illegal, but not unobtainable) tank building software. It's just an idea, but it fits in well with how most things seem to work in the Mass Effect universe.
Megalodon said:
While the various merc groups and corporate soldiers exist, we are never given the impression that they could stand up to any major race's military in a shooting war, even on a small scale.
No, beause they're undertaking large scale military deployments from the start of the game. Eden Prime, Benning etc. They're invading and holding either entire planets, or the major urban centers/strategic locations. That would require a hefty commitment of ships, gear and manpower. Which the game doesn't tell us how they got.
Most of Cerberus actions (like invading Eden Prime and raiding Grissom Academy) are based on acquiring new subjects for integration. Do you think those were the only missions where they were doing that?
It's also clear, both from ME2 and ME3, that the actions of the council and alliance leadership in denying the existence of the Reapers have served to drive up Cerberus' recruitment.
Again, the problem isn't a lack of men, the game explains that. What the game doesn't explain how Cerberus managed to translate that manpower into an effective military force.
Megalodon said:
Coupled with Sanctuary seeming to appeal primarily to the out of luck and desperate, based on what you hear from people the the game, I doubt many multi billionaires were lining up to be husked.
Except, as revealed routinely in dialogue. It cost a lot of money to go there which is why not everyone is shipping out. Where was that money being paid to again?
Considering Rupe Elkoss is envious of the profit margins on such a scheme, it's obviously making big damn money.
Yes, but the point was that it was the sort of deal that desperate people, who pay their life savings, were going for.
And remember, that volus thought Sanctuary was cheap prefabs and nutrient paste. All that husking machinery has to eat into the profit margins
Megalodon said:
If they could afford a fleet like we see in ME3, then the few billion spent reviving Shepard would've been chump change, not the major expenditure Miranda says it was.
As pointed out in ME1, developing the Normandy SR-1 cost as much as a dreadnought. In ME2, Cerberus not only replicated that feat but improved on the design enormously. They clearly have money and shipbuilding facilities already.
Sure, there's a difference in scale, but then if I had a machine which made people loyal slaves I'm pretty sure I could use it to get things I wanted too.
ME1 says the SR-1 cost the same as a heavy cruiser, not a dreadnought or the eezo core could have been used for 12000 fighters. Incidently ME1 says the SR-1 has 120 billion credits of eezo in it's drive core. So I repeat my statement that the Lazarus Project budget (4 billion) should have been chump change if Cerberus has the kind of resourcing ME3 suggests.
What did they improve? They made it bigger so it couldn't enter atmosphere (until the writers forgot) and put in more lights. Apart from EDI, the useful upgrades Shepard had to buy him/herself.
My point is that the specifics of mass production in Mass Effect is never really dealt with. Why assume, for example, that you need a special factory to build tanks rather than.. you know, commandeering a civilian auto factory and reprogramming it with the (presumably illegal, but not unobtainable) tank building software. It's just an idea, but it fits in well with how most things seem to work in the Mass Effect universe.
Where does ME suggest that all construction is essentially 3D printing? You can repurpose civilian infrastructure for military designs however, and it has been done. However, Cerberus is stated as not having supply lines, whereas repurposed factories would be supply lines and the perfect target for strikes by Citadel forces.
Megalodon said:
While the various merc groups and corporate soldiers exist, we are never given the impression that they could stand up to any major race's military in a shooting war, even on a small scale.
That doesn't automatically mean that they were a significant military challenge to Citadel forces, merely that they didn't want to inflict a war on their society and face the political shitstorm. To use a real world analogy, the US doesn't want to get into a conventional war with North Korea, Iran etc. However, this reluctance isn't due to a belief that these countries are a match for the US military.
The you get into the whole bit where the Terminus systems were made to seem bigger and scarier in ME1, then you go there in ME2 and it's not nearly as impressive.
Megalodon said:
We're just supposed to accept the TIM found a force capable of fighting the full force of the galactic fleets behind the sofa one day.
And yet Cerberus doesn't use Reapers, only existing gear with Reaper Tech buffs. The only time before the finale when Cerberus and Reapers share screen time, they're fighting. So the Reaper fleet doesn't help explain where Cerberus get their materiel.
I'm not sure "the full force the galactic fleets" really meant what it used to any more by the time ME3 rolled around.
It's still enough to give the Reapers a fight at Earth, so it's ot a force to lightly dismiss.
All this comes down to the simple fact that the ME games are not consistent with each other, so the overall details don't add up. Like the fallout from the Battle for the Citadel:
ME2- Shepard lists the eight cruisers the Alliance lost defeating Sovreign.
ME3- The 1st, 3re and 5th fleets all lose 1/3 of their ships fighting Sovreign, not to mention any losses to the 2nd and 4th.
So either each alliance fleet is made up of around 9 ships each, which is a pitifully small number, especially given that the Alliance fields 6-9 dreadnoughts in the series. Or someone at Bioware wasn't paying attention.
Where does ME suggest that all construction is essentially 3D printing? You can repurpose civilian infrastructure for military designs however, and it has been done. However, Cerberus is stated as not having supply lines, whereas repurposed factories would be supply lines and the perfect target for strikes by Citadel forces.
Assuming you even knew where they were. The great thing about a re-purposed civilian factory being, of course, that it doesn't necessarily look any different from an ordinary factory.
Again, I assume that all construction is flexible by the fact that every human colonist has a nanoscale 3D printer strapped to their arm which can generate complex circuitry, homing projectiles and blades.
Granted, the whole idea of an omni-tool makes absolutely no sense in terms of any kind of plausability, just like biotics, just like the reapers, just like practically everything including, significantly, Cerberus' military. Are you noticing a trend yet?
All Mass Effect ever gave you was inadequate bare-bones explanation and supposition designed to cover glaring holes. Honestly, it still bothers me how many people miraculously managed to ignore this until the third game.
Assuming you even knew where they were. The great thing about a re-purposed civilian factory being, of course, that it doesn't necessarily look any different from an ordinary factory.
Which is what intelligence operations are for. If this was the explanation in the game, that would be fine, but the game tells us nothing.
Again, I assume that all construction is flexible by the fact that every human colonist has a nanoscale 3D printer strapped to their arm which can generate complex circuitry, homing projectiles and blades.
Granted, the whole idea of an omni-tool makes absolutely no sense in terms of any kind of plausability, just like biotics, just like the reapers, just like practically everything including, significantly, Cerberus' military. Are you noticing a trend yet?
This falls into the same argument about internal consistency in any fictional universe. Unless told otherwise, we assume that things work like in the real world. So being shot will kill you, but it's sci-fi, so the sci-fi medicine can fix you up better than what we have in the real world. We accept that eezo can do a bunch of impossible things, but if the writers keep pulling more out of their ass, people will get increasingly annoyed. ME constructs a world where the majority of economics seem to roughly follow real world parallels, the Alliance pays for its ships, collects taxes etc. An explanation in universe about how Cerberus aquired the massive boost in resources between games would have been nice.
All Mass Effect ever gave you was inadequate bare-bones explanation and supposition designed to cover glaring holes. Honestly, it still bothers me how many people miraculously managed to ignore this until the third game.
That's easy to explain, people are generally less critical and more forgiving of things they like. ME3 managed to undermine a lot of the goodwill people had towards the series, and so the inconsistencies that otherwise would be ignored become more noticeable.
Like I said earlier this creates some other big questions that don't have answers (most notably, why in hell resurrect Shepard?!?) but it's all there in the comics and novels.
Resurrecting Shepard makes a degree of sense, Harbinger immediately targeted Shepard after Sovereign was destroyed, then attempted to retrieve the remains, so presumably they wanted Shepard as an asset to use against the rest of the galaxy. It stands to reason that if Shepard could foil a Reaper that's never had a problem thousands of time before, the rest of the galaxy wouldn't stand a chance against him/her.
Of course putting non-indoctrinated agents in command of Shepard and letting them all go for a jog round the galaxy beforehand as a sort of test run against your previous agents of doom may have been a mistake, but even the Reapers were dealing with a situation they'd never faced before.
Good point - and TBH, I suspect that needing to resurrecting Shepard (in a completely unchanged form, to boot) was probably part of the abandoned Drew Karpyshyn / dark energy / human DNA plotline that was alluded to at various points in ME2. Of course that stuff was all dropped by Mac Walters in ME3 in favour of... erm... the ending that we got instead, so now it's just one of many plot holes or dead ends
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