Literalists say the darndest things

RavenEyry wrote:I must assume people who say 3 ruined cerberus have never played 1, because that's basically what they were like back then. They were only 'good' in 2, and the logs on cronus outright say the crew of Normandy 2 were purposely picked to hide the darker side from Shepard. Heck, half the crew were alliance quitters that joined on rebound and not human supremacists.

The usual response is that (according to them) Bioware didn't know what they wanted to do with Cerberus in ME1, so we can't use that as evidence that they were always bad.

BleedingUranium wrote:

RavenEyry wrote:I must assume people who say 3 ruined cerberus have never played 1, because that's basically what they were like back then. They were only 'good' in 2, and the logs on cronus outright say the crew of Normandy 2 were purposely picked to hide the darker side from Shepard. Heck, half the crew were alliance quitters that joined on rebound and not human supremacists.

The usual response is that (according to them) Bioware didn't know what they wanted to do with Cerberus in ME1, so we can't use that as evidence that they were always bad.

Yeah because it is not like Cerberus had a massive role in the side quests of the game and were never truly dealt with in the context of the game. Seriously I spotted them having a larger role in Mass Effect 2 a mile of (though how large it was I had not expected). Also no matter how you look at it what they did in Mass Effect 1 is canon and thus completely valid for judging them.

But it is a moot point considering we get clear examples of Cerberus darker side in the game with Overlord and Jack's loyalty mission. Probably more as well, but cant remember right now.

Doesn't matter whether they had fuure plans or not, it doesn't change the fact cerberus fed two groups of marines to thresher maws, murdered an admiral and turned a whole colony into husks.

And throughout all three games their attempts to make humans superior involve killing/torturing a lot of humans.

What annoys me are people who say Cerberus went from a tiny shadow organization to a massive army in no time at all. There's clear evidence in the game and the codex that Cerberus has several dozen billion credits in yearly revenue, have been recruiting humans into their ranks for years, and have stock piled warships for years. They've been doing all this since the First Contact War. Not to mention they have almost unrestricted access to Alliance intel.

Phantom Infiltrator wrote:What annoys me are people who say Cerberus went from a tiny shadow organization to a massive army in no time at all. There's clear evidence in the game and the codex that Cerberus has several dozen billion credits in yearly revenue, have been recruiting humans into their ranks for years, and have stock piled warships for years. They've been doing all this since the First Contact War. Not to mention they have almost unrestricted access to Alliance intel.

They are very much like the Obsidion Order from Star Trek, the secret service of the Cardassians. They weren't trusted by the military, and were restricted heavily in how many personel they could employ and weren't allowed warships at all.

Eventually they reveal they infact have been stockpiling supplies and personnel in secret for years, and come out of nowhere with a huge and highly advanced warfleet. And shortly after they whole organisation goes rogue.

From what we can tell about Cerberus:

1/ They used to be 'legit' part of the Alliance as an intelligence organisation, but were secretly working towards their own goals as they stole Alliance secrets and personnel.

2/ They've always had a considerable amount of manpower, even in ME1 when they were branded as terrorists.

3/ They are ridiculously well funded by private benefactors and shadow companies. And probably some criminal activities too.

4/ They have attracted the best human scientists, and have been running unrestricted experiments for at least three years.

5/ They have huge numbers of slaves taken from human colonies, which are also easily recruitable into their army via indoctrination.

6/ TIM is very good at telling half truths, and from keeping truths from his subordinates. Why would he tell Miranda or EDI exactly how many Cerberus personnel there are? I imagine the number of cells might be correct, but the military units might not be organised into cells.

7/ They had Petrovski, a brilliant General, to organise and structure and train their army.

It all fits in my opinion. A little extra foreshadowing would have been nice, but hey.

BleedingUranium wrote:
Honestly, I want the reveal so these idiots are shown to be indoctrinated more than I want it for story reasons.

His other stuff backs this up. Where the so called "doors not opening", is actually caused by him not killing all the enemies in a particular area before moving on. I mean, why put enemies in video games if people are just going to skip and run past them? They put enemies in a game is so that they're trying to stop you from reaching your destination.

When the reveal comes though, they would probably claim that Bioware ripped off IT (a piece of fan fiction as they call it), and use it as the real ending for the game. I can almost guarantee it.

magnetite wrote:

BleedingUranium wrote:
Honestly, I want the reveal so these idiots are shown to be indoctrinated more than I want it for story reasons.

His other stuff backs this up. Where the so called "doors not opening", is actually caused by him not killing all the enemies in a particular area before moving on. I mean, why put enemies in video games if people are just going to skip and run past them? They put enemies in a game is so that they're trying to stop you from reaching your destination.

When the reveal comes though, they would probably claim that Bioware ripped off IT (a piece of fan fiction as they call it), and use it as the real ending for the game. I can almost guarantee it.

Oh yes no doubt that will be the answer from all those whose dreams of Synthesis glory are crushed. It will be our job to tell them that it was all there from the beginning, buried in the data.

Phantom Infiltrator wrote:What annoys me are people who say Cerberus went from a tiny shadow organization to a massive army in no time at all. There's clear evidence in the game and the codex that Cerberus has several dozen billion credits in yearly revenue, have been recruiting humans into their ranks for years, and have stock piled warships for years. They've been doing all this since the First Contact War. Not to mention they have almost unrestricted access to Alliance intel.

Not to mention luring people to Sanctuary and 'integrating' them into their ranks. That's the main reason.

DoomsdayDevice wrote:

Phantom Infiltrator wrote:What annoys me are people who say Cerberus went from a tiny shadow organization to a massive army in no time at all. There's clear evidence in the game and the codex that Cerberus has several dozen billion credits in yearly revenue, have been recruiting humans into their ranks for years, and have stock piled warships for years. They've been doing all this since the First Contact War. Not to mention they have almost unrestricted access to Alliance intel.

Not to mention luring people to Sanctuary and 'integrating' them into their ranks. That's the main reason.

That and the PR coup having Shepard working for Cerberus and protecting human colonies from the Collectors while the Alliance/Council did nothing.

So yeah... more than enough reasons.

And they were hardly tiny in 1 anyway. You can destroy what? Four bases? And it never implies that's the end of them.

RavenEyry wrote:And they were hardly tiny in 1 anyway. You can destroy what? Four bases? And it never implies that's the end of them.

Yeah, four bases, killing a admiral, managed to get their hands on some Rachni, the experiments on Corporal Tombs from Akuze...hell playing through this again a log from a Cerberus officer in regards to the Rachni even mentions a "General."

And none of the above places even hint at beeing the main base + in regards to the Rachni thing Liara (or any squad mate considering how dialogue works in the first agme) comments that Cerberus might be bigger than we thought.

Also post mission summaries and codex entries in ME2 suggest Shepard's actions against the Collectors greatly benefit Cerberus by helping them gain valuable intel.

Phantom Infiltrator wrote:What annoys me are people who say Cerberus went from a tiny shadow organization to a massive army in no time at all. There's clear evidence in the game and the codex that Cerberus has several dozen billion credits in yearly revenue, have been recruiting humans into their ranks for years, and have stock piled warships for years. They've been doing all this since the First Contact War. Not to mention they have almost unrestricted access to Alliance intel.

These are the people that think any kind of twist is a retcon. I've heard people claim that finding Javik is a retcon, because all the Protheans were dead.

BleedingUranium wrote:

Phantom Infiltrator wrote:What annoys me are people who say Cerberus went from a tiny shadow organization to a massive army in no time at all. There's clear evidence in the game and the codex that Cerberus has several dozen billion credits in yearly revenue, have been recruiting humans into their ranks for years, and have stock piled warships for years. They've been doing all this since the First Contact War. Not to mention they have almost unrestricted access to Alliance intel.

These are the people that think any kind of twist is a retcon. I've heard people claim that finding Javik is a retcon, because all the Protheans were dead.

Did they miss the mission to Illos?

Correct me if I'm wrong, as I haven't read the comics, but wasn't Jack Harper inspired to found Cerberus directly as a result of his exposure to the the Reaper Artefact?

If so, Cerberus was never anything other than a tool of the Reapers. TIM way have been fooled into believing otherwise, but he was only ever serving their interests, like the Prothean separatists before him.

Why some people sympathised with them in ME2, and were therefore disappointed to find them showing their true colours in ME3 I'll never understand. As has been mentioned above, they were unambiguously evil in ME1, and Martin Sheen did a superb job of portraying TIM as the slimiest bastard to ever draw breath. I never trusted TIM as far as I could throw him.

Eryri wrote:Correct me if I'm wrong, as I haven't read the comics, but wasn't Jack Harper inspired to found Cerberus directly as a result of his exposure to the the Reaper Artefact?

If so, Cerberus was never anything other than a tool of the Reapers. TIM way have been fooled into believing otherwise, but he was only ever serving their interests, like the Prothean separatists before him.

Why some people sympathised with them in ME2, and were therefore disappointed to find them showing their true colours in ME3 I'll never understand. As has been mentioned above, they were unambiguously evil in ME1, and Martin Sheen did a superb job of portraying TIM as the slimiest bastard to ever draw breath. I never trusted TIM as far as I could throw him.

This is 100% true, but they just deny he was ever indoctrinated until you meet him on the Citadel in 3.

Eryri wrote:Correct me if I'm wrong, as I haven't read the comics, but wasn't Jack Harper inspired to found Cerberus directly as a result of his exposure to the the Reaper Artefact?

If so, Cerberus was never anything other than a tool of the Reapers. TIM way have been fooled into believing otherwise, but he was only ever serving their interests, like the Prothean separatists before him.

Why some people sympathised with them in ME2, and were therefore disappointed to find them showing their true colours in ME3 I'll never understand. As has been mentioned above, they were unambiguously evil in ME1, and Martin Sheen did a superb job of portraying TIM as the slimiest bastard to ever draw breath. I never trusted TIM as far as I could throw him.

I read the comic and this is howni perceived it (tim starting cerberus as a result from the artifact contact)

Furthermore i have the huge "the art of the mass effect universe" artbook. It is shown there that binary helix (noveria rachni experiments) has the exact same logo as cerberus...might be a coincidence or just bioware reusing the logo, but who knows.

Edit:sorry, scratch that! It's the same logo but very similar.



https://2img.net/r/ihimizer/img152/5351/newpe.jpg

skillz1986 wrote:I read the comic and this is howni perceived it (tim starting cerberus as a result from the artifact contact)

Furthermore i have the huge "the art of the mass effect universe" artbook. It is shown there that binary helix (noveria rachni experiments) has the exact same logo as cerberus...might be a coincidence or just bioware reusing the logo, but who knows.

Edit:sorry, scratch that! It's the same logo but very similar.



https://2img.net/r/ihimizer/img152/5351/newpe.jpg

Even in colours. Yeah, I bet they based the ME2/3 logo off that.

Also, Devlon Industries made the decision chamber

skillz1986 wrote:

I read the comic and this is howni perceived it (tim starting cerberus as a result from the artifact contact)

Furthermore i have the huge "the art of the mass effect universe" artbook. It is shown there that binary helix (noveria rachni experiments) has the exact same logo as cerberus...might be a coincidence or just bioware reusing the logo, but who knows.

Edit:sorry, scratch that! It's the same logo but very similar.



https://2img.net/r/ihimizer/img152/5351/newpe.jpg

Well, Cerberus are supposed to have numerous front organisations, so its certainly possible. Plastering your logo all over the place seems a little counter productive for a super secret organisation, but that's the kind of daft thing that secret societies always do in fiction. Very Dan Brown.

Eryri wrote:Well, Cerberus are supposed to have numerous front organisations, so its certainly possible. Plastering your logo all over the place seems a little counter productive for a super secret organisation, but that's the kind of daft thing that secret societies always do in fiction. Very Dan Brown.

It's for the sake of the audience, and the alternative is to yell "THIS IS A CERBERUS BASE" all the time.

It would explain where they got the rachni from that show up in 2 cerberus missions from 1, if a front organisation was the one breeding them.

Ugh..i even get things wrong while editing my posts.

What i meant to say was: it's NOT the same logo but it's very similar.

Sorry for that.

RavenEyry wrote:It would explain where they got the rachni from that show up in 2 cerberus missions from 1, if a front organisation was the one breeding them.

That's what i was slowly trying to build up to...damn ITers...always pick up on things from the get go.

I can't varify it anywhere, but I've heard once that the common "Cerberus Logo" is actually the logo of "Cord-Hislop Aerospace" a cover corporation that is used by Cerberus.
And the true Cerberus logo being something like three spheres/circles representing the three-headed dog?

OT:
I like this fan-made wallpaper. Miranda looks much more realistic... since it is her VA with black hair.