ME2: How can I get rid of Cerberus?

[AC-Darth]

I know that the majority of the community loves Mass Effect 2. I don't. I actually dislike it because of its story and the missing RPG elements from the first game.

I don't want to start a fight and hope that we can have a friendly discussion.

There will be spoilers!




Cerberus in Mass Effect 1 did some really horrible things. Feeding Alliance soldiers to thresher maws, rachni and thorian creepers. They also killed Admiral Kahoku and turned an entire colony into husks.

My paragon Shepard would never work with cerberus yet I am forced to do so in Mass Effect 2. I usually play my Shepard exactly the same in every playthrough (on Xbox). I never experiment with other option after I found out how to get the best endings.

But now after I just finished ME1 again I dread playing ME2 again. There are just two Squadmembers that I like. Garrus and Tali. As well as one DLC that I like. It's called Arrival.

That alone can't carry the game for me. But I want to keep playing.

So I thought I would like to try something new to keep me entertained. Is there a way to kill the entire Cerberus crew as well as Miranda and Jacob while everyone else survives?

It would be interesting to see how that would effect Mass Effect 3.

[GoreTiger]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von alexander_dougherty:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von GoreTiger:

Again, it's not a war crime. They were an invading force that got hit where they were strongest. If you consider the genophage a war crime then you might as well accuse the Krogan and council races of war crimes during the Rachni wars when the Krogans rushed into Rachni queen chambers and detonated nuclear weapons, Killing off all the children and their mothers.

Yes, that's a war crime, a necessary war crime since the alternative was for the Rachni to wipe them out, but still a war crime. War is evil, and sometimes the only choices are evil, but that doesn't make them any less evil.

I fully accept those war crimes were essential, and that it was the only way to survive. But I also accept they were war crimes, and refuse to pretend otherwise.

That is not a war crime either, Considering that the Rachni would of never stopped raging war if their supply of soldiers weren't cut off, and this same sentiment goes for the Krogan as well. You seem very liberal with the term war crime. What actual article of the Hague Convention are you even basing your accusations on?

Ursprünglich geschrieben von alexander_dougherty:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von GoreTiger:

Like I said, the krogan didn't help their case for getting rid of the genophage by constantly threatening another galactic war if it was ever cured.
Nobody on the revised genophage cure want the krogan dead and mordin is adament about this.

Oh I agree the Krogan made matters worse with their constant threats...

But again, Mordin and his team KNEW that the rate to which they were reducing the Krogan Fertility would at the current rate cause them to die out.... if they had adjusted it to allow a slight increase, like a 1% growth rate, or even a 0.5% growth rate, something Mordin and his team could have done, then maybe the Krogan wouldn't have run into Saren's arms, or risked their lives in Maelon's incompetent experiments, these are not the actions of a people who are stabilised.

Again, The genophage does not cause the krogan to die out. Krogan mentality causes the Krogan to die out. The Krogan were killing their species off far before the salarians every showed up. They nuked their planet to ash and constantly seek new ways to kill eachother. Stabilizing their birth rates is not killing them off. If the salarians WANTED to kill them, they easily could of, which again Mordin fully explains.

[HouseOfTheRat]

The logs in ME3 are a retcon to try and make Cerberus look even more like bad guys. The original explanation/excuse for Cerberus' actions was that they are organized in cells with a high degree of autonomy. This, combined with fanaticism and a culture of results first, led some Cerberus guys to do horrible things on their own. The Illusive Man did not approve of those and shut them down, but he did consider those incidents to be acceptable collateral damage. You are even get the option to give TIM a giant middle finger by blowing up the collector base, even though it sets the entire galaxy back and makes no sense.

So working with Cerberus in ME2 was always supposed to be uncomfortable and conflicting, and left players the choice of how far would you trust them. ME3 tried to retcon this to "oh poor Shepard didn't have a clue we are so evil mwahaha" despite everything you learned in ME2.

[GoreTiger]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von 2021:

The logs in ME3 are a retcon to try and make Cerberus look even more like bad guys. The original explanation/excuse for Cerberus' actions was that they are organized in cells with a high degree of autonomy. This, combined with fanaticism and a culture of results first, led some Cerberus guys to do horrible things on their own. The Illusive Man did not approve of those and shut them down, but he did consider those incidents to be acceptable collateral damage. You are even get the option to give TIM a giant middle finger by blowing up the collector base, even though it sets the entire galaxy back and makes no sense.

So working with Cerberus in ME2 was always supposed to be uncomfortable and conflicting, and left players the choice of how far would you trust them. ME3 tried to retcon this to "oh poor Shepard didn't have a clue we are so evil mwahaha" despite everything you learned in ME2.

Blowing up the collector base makes perfect sense when you consider cerberus would be the ones getting their hands on it.

What doesn't make sense tho is HOW they were even able to get there. The Normandy needed a reaper IFF to get through the omega relay and I doubt they cloned a few of them before it was installed in the normandy.

[alexander_dougherty]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von GoreTiger:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von alexander_dougherty:

Yes, that's a war crime, a necessary war crime since the alternative was for the Rachni to wipe them out, but still a war crime. War is evil, and sometimes the only choices are evil, but that doesn't make them any less evil.

I fully accept those war crimes were essential, and that it was the only way to survive. But I also accept they were war crimes, and refuse to pretend otherwise.

That is not a war crime either, Considering that the Rachni would of never stopped raging war if their supply of soldiers weren't cut off, and this same sentiment goes for the Krogan as well. You seem very liberal with the term war crime. What actual article of the Hague Convention are you even basing your accusations on?

Genocide for the Rachni, Biological warfare for the Krogan.

Ursprünglich geschrieben von alexander_dougherty:

Oh I agree the Krogan made matters worse with their constant threats...

But again, Mordin and his team KNEW that the rate to which they were reducing the Krogan Fertility would at the current rate cause them to die out.... if they had adjusted it to allow a slight increase, like a 1% growth rate, or even a 0.5% growth rate, something Mordin and his team could have done, then maybe the Krogan wouldn't have run into Saren's arms, or risked their lives in Maelon's incompetent experiments, these are not the actions of a people who are stabilised.

Again, The genophage does not cause the krogan to die out. Krogan mentality causes the Krogan to die out. The Krogan were killing their species off far before the salarians every showed up. They nuked their planet to ash and constantly seek new ways to kill eachother. Stabilizing their birth rates is not killing them off. If the salarians WANTED to kill them, they easily could of, which again Mordin fully explains.

Again, it may be a stabilisation on paper, but in the game we are seeing it doesn't work that way. The intended effect is not what's happening.

In less than one generation the Krogan have gone from being a threat to everybody, to being on the verge of extinction. Yes they can live 1500 years, but in just under 600 years they are on the edge of dying off. The Genophage simply is not stabilising their population.

In the face of that reality, Mordin's explanation simply doesn't hold. Which is why both he and Maelon had crisis's of conscience and tried to cure it.

[GoreTiger]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von alexander_dougherty:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von GoreTiger:

That is not a war crime either, Considering that the Rachni would of never stopped raging war if their supply of soldiers weren't cut off, and this same sentiment goes for the Krogan as well. You seem very liberal with the term war crime. What actual article of the Hague Convention are you even basing your accusations on?

Genocide for the Rachni, Biological warfare for the Krogan.

Again, The genophage does not cause the krogan to die out. Krogan mentality causes the Krogan to die out. The Krogan were killing their species off far before the salarians every showed up. They nuked their planet to ash and constantly seek new ways to kill eachother. Stabilizing their birth rates is not killing them off. If the salarians WANTED to kill them, they easily could of, which again Mordin fully explains.

Again, it may be a stabilisation on paper, but in the game we are seeing it doesn't work that way. The intended effect is not what's happening.

In less than one generation the Krogan have gone from being a threat to everybody, to being on the verge of extinction. Yes they can live 1500 years, but in just under 600 years they are on the edge of dying off. The Genophage simply is not stabilising their population.

In the face of that reality, Mordin's explanation simply doesn't hold. Which is why both he and Maelon had crisis's of conscience and tried to cure it.

Genocide doesn't work for the Rachni considering they were a constantly hostile enemy that from what we know didn't communicate or negotiate. We also know that rachni were under the control of Leviathan so you really have him to blame.
Biological warfare also doesn't count considering Biotics themselves would likely be seen as Biological warfare considering how they manifest. The rules of Galactic war are alot more advanced then one lowly planet.

And once again I'll say it: The genophage did stabilize their population, but it doesn't alter Krogan personalities. The krogan still have the same aggressive lets-kill-eachother attitude they've always had except now they can't pop out a thousand kids a litter to replace the thousand that went and killed themselves. As Bakara said: The Krogan destroyed themselves long before the genophage ever showed up.

[HouseOfTheRat]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von GoreTiger:

Blowing up the collector base makes perfect sense when you consider cerberus would be the ones getting their hands on it.

This is wrong, and everyone in the game who has something to say say that they disagree with it. If your squadmates comment about destroying the base, they all say the same thing: "we don't need it because the collectors are evil". Which makes no sense in the game's story. Especially after spending half the game studying and using reaper technology so you can fight the reapers. And talking about how everyone else dismisses them and Cerberus are the only ones willing to actually prepare for a reaper invasion and fight them back.

If you want to take Arrival into account, then everything goes out the window. But Arrival is better thought of as part of the ME3 story, not ME2.

Oh and then there is the Citadel lol. Even after they know that it is reaper tech, they have no problems using it in ME3.

What you are saying - which is pretty much my stance too on this topic - would have made a lot more sense, except this is not what happens in the game.

You do get the option to be reserved about Cerberus and even outright not trust TIM. This is the only path that gives us a single line to support what should have been the main argument (there may be a morality requirement or past choices that change the line too, I am not sure): Shepard calls out TIM for being completely ruthless, to the point of making his own reaper if he could - and, hilariously, TIM doesn't outright deny it. Whatever it takes, right? That should have been the main reasoning for blowing up the base instead of being a side note. It would have helped ME3 Cerberus make more sense, too.

So all of that is great, but it isn't supported by the rest of the story at all, and that is a shame. It goes back to what I was saying - that while we do make many choices that radically affect the world of Mass Effect, some choices are more canonical than others and the game is written with them in mind.

PS: It would also have worked a lot better if TIM wanted to keep the incomplete reaper for his own use rather than the base. After all they do exactly that in ME3 regardless of your choice.

[alexander_dougherty]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von GoreTiger:

And once again I'll say it: The genophage did stabilize their population, but it doesn't alter Krogan personalities. The krogan still have the same aggressive lets-kill-eachother attitude they've always had except now they can't pop out a thousand kids a litter to replace the thousand that went and killed themselves. As Bakara said: The Krogan destroyed themselves long before the genophage ever showed up.

You have a massively different definition to stabilising a population than I do. The krogan numbers have plummeted and are showing no signs of stopping. The original Genophage was needed, but I remain unconvinced that restoring it at full strength was the best option.

Especially given how quickly the Council races suddenly decided they needed the Krogan after all....

[HouseOfTheRat]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von GoreTiger:

What doesn't make sense tho is HOW they were even able to get there. The Normandy needed a reaper IFF to get through the omega relay and I doubt they cloned a few of them before it was installed in the normandy.

The answer to this is that they were able to because Shepard and team agreed to go find some reaper tech and give it to Cerberus to use it. Not even collector tech like the base is - straight up evil, spooky, indoctrinating reaper tech.

[GoreTiger]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von 2021:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von GoreTiger:

Blowing up the collector base makes perfect sense when you consider cerberus would be the ones getting their hands on it.

This is wrong, and everyone in the game who has something to say say that they disagree with it. If your squadmates comment about destroying the base, they all say the same thing: "we don't need it because the collectors are evil". Which makes no sense in the game's story. Especially after spending half the game studying and using reaper technology so you can fight the reapers. And talking about how everyone else dismisses them and Cerberus are the only ones willing to actually prepare for a reaper invasion and fight them back.

If you want to take Arrival into account, then everything goes out the window. But Arrival is better thought of as part of the ME3 story, not ME2.

Oh and then there is the Citadel lol. Even after they know that it is reaper tech, they have no problems using it in ME3.

What you are saying - which is pretty much my stance too on this topic - would have made a lot more sense, except this is not what happens in the game.

You do get the option to be reserved about Cerberus and even outright not trust TIM. This is the only path that gives us a single line to support what should have been the main argument (there may be a morality requirement or past choices that change the line too, I am not sure): Shepard calls out TIM for being completely ruthless, to the point of making his own reaper if he could - and, hilariously, TIM doesn't outright deny it. Whatever it takes, right? That should have been the main reasoning for blowing up the base instead of being a side note. It would have helped ME3 Cerberus make more sense, too.

So all of that is great, but it isn't supported by the rest of the story at all, and that is a shame. It goes back to what I was saying - that while we do make many choices that radically affect the world of Mass Effect, some choices are more canonical than others and the game is written with them in mind.

PS: It would also have worked a lot better if TIM wanted to keep the incomplete reaper for his own use rather than the base. After all they do exactly that in ME3 regardless of your choice.

There is plenty of evidence in the game before shep reaches the base to help him come to the conclusion that Cerberus cannot be trusted with both Reaper tech and beyond. The first would be the Cerberus scientist's absolute lack in shielding themselves from indoctrination when studying the dead reaper for the IFF. The TIM knew about indoctrination, And yet he still didn't have hi scientists take the proper steps and it could of cost the mission everything if they had destroyed/lost the IFF.

The second is Project Overlord, Which TIM fully endorses how it was conducted and even tells shep that he regrets the loss of the project.

There is also the way that TIM constantly talks about Human domination. He constantly makes it obvious he wants humanity to dominate the future. He has no plans on sharing the base or its findings with the rest of the galaxy to help them prepare for the reapers.

From this evidence, Your shep can come to the conclusion that handing the base over to TIM is a terrible idea.

Ursprünglich geschrieben von 2021:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von GoreTiger:

What doesn't make sense tho is HOW they were even able to get there. The Normandy needed a reaper IFF to get through the omega relay and I doubt they cloned a few of them before it was installed in the normandy.

The answer to this is that they were able to because Shepard and team agreed to go find some reaper tech and give it to Cerberus to use it. Not even collector tech like the base is - straight up evil, spooky, indoctrinating reaper tech.

This doesn't explain at all why cerberus ships lacking a reaper IFF were able to access and use the Omega 4 relay which the Normandy required a reaper IFF to use.

[HouseOfTheRat]

Read my comment bro. TIM never tried to hide his true intentions from Shepard, that is what made the story interesting. He was open about his humanity first agenda, his ends-justify-the-means approach, and the fact that he is using (but not forcing) Shepard to these ends. He was clear about you working together because only because your goals happened to be the same (even if you antagonized him), the goal being saving humanity. The entire game is built around this uncomfortable alliance (which is for all intents and purposes retconned in ME3).

Even if you didn't catch all that, even if if TIM outright said that he wants to make an army of reapers (which is obvious that he did not, since he never even tried to get control of the incomplete human reaper), the choice would still be between giving a very shady guy an edge down the road on one hand and complete galactic annihilation on the other.

It is a trolley problem, the Mass Effect games are chock full of those and they are supposed to make you feel uncomfortable and examine how you feel. Except that there isn't really a choice when it comes to the base. It is between gaining one massive advantage over the enemy versus completely nothing.

[GoreTiger]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von 2021:

Read my comment bro. TIM never tried to hide his true intentions from Shepard, that is what made the story interesting. He was open about his humanity first agenda, his ends-justify-the-means approach, and the fact that he is using (but not forcing) Shepard to these ends. He was clear about you working together because only because your goals happened to be the same (even if you antagonized him), the goal being saving humanity. The entire game is built around this uncomfortable alliance (which is for all intents and purposes retconned in ME3).

Even if you didn't catch all that, even if if TIM outright said that he wants to make an army of reapers (which is obvious that he did not, since he never even tried to get control of the incomplete human reaper), the choice would still be between giving a very shady guy an edge down the road on one hand and complete galactic annihilation on the other.

It is a trolley problem, the Mass Effect games are chock full of those and they are supposed to make you feel uncomfortable and examine how you feel. Except that there isn't really a choice when it comes to the base. It is between gaining one massive advantage over the enemy versus completely nothing.

You don't know if he tried to control the human reaper or not. We DO know he recovers it AND uses it in his base.
We also know he DOES intend to try and control the reapers themselves.
Like I already stated, story-wise there's two big events that shep can draw the conclusion that leaving the base for TIM is a bad Idea.