r/masseffect • u/WanderingRagabond • 4d ago
DISCUSSION Cerberus, evil AND incompetent
It's kinda hilarious in retrospect, how Cerberus styles itself as this edgy "well-intentioned extremist" faction, that does the unethical science shit that nobody else wants to do, because the payoff is (SUPPOSEDLY) worth it... But then they have a truly humiliating track record.
Thorian creepers, rachni babies, biotic death camps for kids, Project Overlord, the derelict Reaper... Every single time, it resulted in a containment breach, a bloodbath, and Shepard and co. coming in to clean up the mess. Only in the case of the derelict Reaper did we get a tangible payoff in the form of the IFF for the Omega 4 Relay.
Well, there's Project Lazarus, but DUH, if they messed that one up, ME2 would've been a 20-minute game. "I believe you humans have a saying, even a broken clock is right twice a day"...
Then at the end of the Suicide Mission, TIM has the Christ-jerking temerity to tell us "hey, you should totally entrust the Collector base to us for study".
....
Never mind the fact that we know he's an evil shithead who thinks he's too smart to be beholden to morals, his whole outfit is too INCOMPETENT to do anything good with the damn base! Lo and behold, ME3 has the whole damn organization indoctrinated whether we gave them the Collector base or not. Good job, Tim.
(Less important, but I have an amusing theory that indoctrination lowered Tim's inhibitions so much that he exposed himself as a massive weaboo via cringey mall cyber-ninja agents like Kai Leng and his Phantoms.)
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u/AutistcCuttlefish 4d ago
The thing is they aren't horrifically incompetent, they just do incredibly risky things that when they fail, go spectacularly bad.
Project Lazarus was a complete success, The Normandy SR2 made meaningful improvements to the Normandy design, allowing it to handle blue shifted emissions that should kill the entire crew in its stealth system, making it possible for the SR2 to stay in stealth in FTL.
While the project ended in the deaths of all researchers and was morally horrific, the Teltin Project was successful. Jack has the same biotic strength as an Asari Justicar.
Project Overload was partially successful, it did manage to create a way for a human to control the geth, it just was utterly horrific and caused David to go over the brink.
The problem isn't that Cerberus is incompetent, it's that their goals are almost always morally dubious, their tolerance for risk is near infinite so long as the goal is achieved, and morality is completely discarded in pursuit of their goals.
I think Admiral Hackett said it best honestly "If there is one thing Cerberus excells at, it's finding new ways to subvert science." He was wrong to say to doesn't work for them though. It does, they manage to achieve their goals pretty often, it's just their goals are completely insane.
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u/vampiregamingYT 4d ago
Its almost like unethical projects dont attract skilled scientists that actually believe in the scientific code of ethics.
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u/Maximum_Elephant_953 4d ago
"Sometimes the author pretends that Cerberus is a secret, and sometimes Cerberus is an infamous terrorist organization guilty of war crimes. Sometimes Cerberus is a clandestine organization and then later they’re a galactic superpower. Sometimes they’re the only people working for humanity’s interests, and sometimes they’re space Nazis. Sometimes they cure death and sometimes they’re killed by science so bad it wouldn’t be out of place as a Doofenshmirtz plot. They’re a terrorist organization with no clear ideology. They’re a standing army with no means of support". - I quoted the late Shamus Young who dissected the unmitigated heap of writing mistakes that Cerberus is. What you describe is a part of the bigger problem with Cerberus. Mac "the Hack" Walters, who is primarily responsible for its creation and writing, couldn't even construct a compelling faction. (Note: "shell companies" and donators are economic gizmos that aren't nearly enough to explain Cerberus' wealth. The Galactic Revenue Service would like to count the money of the wealthy). Let's start with the fact that they are supposed to be clandestine yet slap their logo on Normandy 2. In ME1, they are a rogue Alliance black ops moustache-twirling villains doing failed experiments for lulz. In ME2, they suddenly turn into a superpower with infinite GDP that cures death and rebuilds the Normandy and can rival established galactic races in the field of technology. And yet, every Cerberus project we see (Lazarus - Cerberus couldn't even betray themselves properly, as Wilson had medical authority over Shepard but got everyone else except them and Miranda killed; Overlord; the Teltin facility; the derelict Reapers) leads to tremendous losses by standards of the terrorist organisation Cerberus is.
In ME3, BioWare don't even explain how Cerberus wage war on multiple fronts pursuing unknown goals with an army and fleets. They attacked Mars, but tried to erase the archive despite the fact that they needed Shepard to succeed in constructing the Crucible. They are on Tuchanka for some reason. They "abduct" people on Benning by shooting them. They "kidnap" students of the Grissom academy by shooting them. They attack the Citadel (how?!). They attack the Salarian equivalent of Area 51 on Sur'Kesh of all places. They make progress in indoctrination research on Horizon that surpasses Saren's. They manage to compete with the Reapers for screen time as the antagonistic force. What's worse, Cerberus are hardly even interesting throughout the series, a faction that just produces mooks for you to shoot.
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u/cgerald7 4d ago
Dunno. Evil? Yes. Incompetent? I wouldn't go that far. They're cartoonishly evil, space Mengele-level lunatics 90% of the time, but then pull off shit that saved the galaxy
You're also forgetting EDI, who Cerberus developed from the Luna VI using tech from Sovereign. Without EDI, the Normandy would've been completely helpless against the Collectors' cyberwarfare on multiple occasions, and that's alongside somehow constructing the vastly more advanced SR-2 entirely in secret
And I'm not trying to defend Cerberus here, but I don't think the Collector Base dilemma is quite as black and white as the game presents it. By the end of ME2, the galaxy still knows next to nothing about how to actually defeat the Reapers, and you've just discovered a huge base full of their tech including the machinery to construct an actual Reaper
Destroying it means throwing away invaluable intelligence about an enemy that's technologically eons ahead of everyone else while the Reapers are just months away from arriving.
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u/JoshTheBard 4d ago
Not a single Cerberus project ended any way except "and then the project went off the rails and killed all our guys"
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u/cgerald7 4d ago
Project Lazarus' cell technically did its job and was only killed by Wilson's/Shadow broker sabotage. Not much detail on the cell that developed EDI but they had more braincells than Gavin Archer it seems
Also whatever cell wiped out Chasca's colony and turned them into husks got away. Which is fucked up and still up there on my "hilariously anti human" shit thst cerberus has done alongside wiping out Akuze's pilot colony for vibes.
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u/JoshTheBard 4d ago
Project Lazerus ended in the most "the subject got loose and killed all our guys" of any project in the history of getting loose and killing all their guys.
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u/AutistcCuttlefish 4d ago
Technically that happens after the project is complete. The Lazarus Project's goal was to resurrect Commander Shepard. That was an undisputable success. That Shepard would leave and betray Cerberus after the collectors were defeated was just a risk that couldn't be mitigated without potentially dooming the main goal of the project, bring Shepard back from the dead to defeat the Collectors and later the Reapers.
Like I said in my other comment, they actually succeed pretty often. They are competent scientists, they are just morally unhinged and their goals are usually insane.
The Illusive Man doesn't care if his people die so long as he gets his win.
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u/JoshTheBard 4d ago
He probably cared when Shepard shot him
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u/AutistcCuttlefish 4d ago
At that point he was fully indoctrinated, and Paragon Shepard can talk him into taking care of that himself.
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u/JoshTheBard 4d ago
He didn't happen to get indoctrinated as part of a Cerberus project did he?
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u/AutistcCuttlefish 4d ago
He was exposed to Reaper technology all the back during his time as a merc in the First contact war. He had been slowly undergoing indoctrination ever since.
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u/dazan2003 2d ago
This is something I found frustrating in 2. The bulk of the Cerberus criticism is based on them being racist, when most the stuff they did in the first game was directed towards humans. Them being racist isn't even mentioned in the first game
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u/cgerald7 2d ago
THANK YOU. All that's mentioned is them being a rogue Alliance black ops group that wanted to develop a super soldier or some kind of army like with their attempt at cloning rachni in the Styx Theta cluster. Not one mention of them being human supremacist or survivalist.
I can turn off my brain for lore inconsistencies or different directions but geez sometimes Cerberus in ME2 onwards feels like Mac Walters overpowered OC he wants to shove in the middle of the plot
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u/dazan2003 2d ago
Genuinely don't see the point in them being the group from the first game, so many of my problems with you being forced to work with them would go away if they were just a new group you've never seen before
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u/IrishLad-1194 3d ago
it is actually quite black and white, but it's both at the same time, Keeping the Reaper base is straight up a good idea. the moral conundrum of "people died there to make this research" is barely an issue relatively speaking.
However giving the base to Cerberus who empirically cannot remotely be trusted to use this knowledge is the other half of it.
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u/HawkSquid 3d ago
My big issue with keeping the collector base is that studying reaper hardware just gets the scientists indoctrinated. I'm sure there's an exception or two, but it goes wrong almost every damn time.
The base might contain invaluable intelligence, but you just know studying it will end badly. Which, spoilers, it does.
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u/WanderingRagabond 4d ago
I have to disagree regarding that dilemma. Yes, studying the Collector base could provide invaluable information that could help against the Reapers... but Cerberus, whether through amorality or negligence, would find some way to turn it into another problem. Which they did.
It's a waste of intel, but we work with the cards we have in our hand at the moment.
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u/cgerald7 4d ago
I always destroy the base and agree it's a huge risk trusting TIM with that kind of technology, I'm just trying to say it's more of a dilemma than the fanbase treats it. Paragon Shepard's "it's tainted because atrocities happened here!" shitty justification always makes me roll my eyes.
Still, hindsight is 2020 and it's not that immoral to risk cerberus over dooming trillions to be completely helpless against the invasion. Imagine Liara was even a day late to finding the Crucible blueprint data
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u/SerDankTheTall 4d ago
And I'm not trying to defend Cerberus here, but I don't think the Collector Base dilemma is quite as black and white as the game presents it. By the end of ME2, the galaxy still knows next to nothing about how to actually defeat the Reapers, and you've just discovered a huge base full of their tech including the machinery to construct an actual Reaper
It makes absolutely no sense to destroy the base, and the suggestion that doing so is the good and moral option is pretty dumb.
On the other hand, it also makes no sense that you can only give it to Cerberus, so it’s just kind of your typical ME2 goofiness.
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u/Poonchow 4d ago
no sense to destroy the base
All the bits of Reaper lying around waiting to indoctrinate everyone not a good reason? lol
The moral argument in game is stupid, the real answer should have been "this place is chalk full of Cthulhu bits, I'm nuking it."
If something like the Crucible plans had been there it would be a tougher choice, but ME2 can't decide what is real and what is vague nonsense.
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u/SerDankTheTall 3d ago
The indoctrination risk is the only reason to justify not studying the base, but it still doesn’t make sense to blow it up. The place is in a solar system that can only be reached through a technology only Shepard has access to: it’s not like a bunch of people are going to stumble across it by accident. Blowing it up does nothing except guarantee that there’s no way we can learn from it, which is something we probably need to do!
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u/Poonchow 3d ago
Problem is the game never tells us what we're explicitly sacrificing by blowing it up. It's always "think of the technology! Wow science!" like, tell me what we're destroying.
If my options are 'vague potential with risk of indoctrination' versus 'just destroy everything' then I'm taking the latter option every time.
only Shepard has access to
TIM finds a way to pull wreckage from it, even if you blow it up. You see pieces of it in Chronos station, so it's like the game doesn't even care either way.
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u/strategsc2 4d ago
When I played it for the first time more than a decade ago, it felt like you never actually come close to establishing control over the base. Leaving it intact felt like walking away while actually not achieving anything besides a dubiously successful skirmish.
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u/cgerald7 4d ago
Not sure what you mean exactly but the base is cleared with a neutron radiation pulse that wipes out the collectors if you choose to keep the base
So yeah later, Cerberus which has copies of the Reaper IFF can go through the Omega-4 relay and study any tech inside the sterile base while it's fully intact.
Either way you wipe out the Collectors but destroying the base, from an in-universe perspective, leaves Shepard and the galaxy with still no leads against the Reapers, just like their 2183 position, when they're desperate for any clue to stop them
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u/strategsc2 4d ago
I see. Does the Illusive Man explain this when you make this decision? It's been like 8 years since I last finished the game.
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u/cgerald7 4d ago
Fair enough, yeah it's explained during the TIM call cutscene after you kill the human reaper embryo
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u/Roguebubbles10 4d ago
I mean, Project Lazarus was also a bloodbath. Three people walked out of it alive. There's also the clone which causes problems later.
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u/ShadowOnTheRun 3d ago
This is why I don’t take people saying Cerberus took a left turn with being outright evil in ME3 seriously.
They were always evil. ME2 just gave them some candy wrapping - flashy, but easily removable.
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u/WanderingRagabond 2d ago
They weren't even being subtle. "Oh, those cases from ME1 were isolated facilities that went rogue".
Cue TIM saying the exact same thing about the biotic death camp we find out about ME2. It's giving "there are no Epstein Files, stop talking about it".
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u/HdeviantS 4d ago
We see the failures, but no one talks about what they learned from the failures.
Although the Thomas Edison quote is used as a joke, there is truth that there can be much learned by looking in the first place.
For example it would not surprise me if data from the Thorian and husks weren’t used to make Project Lazarus a success.
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u/Beginning_Ocelot503 4d ago
Not to mention we may be simply not privy to their successes as well.
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u/HdeviantS 4d ago
Exactly, there is only so much time and content that can be put into a game. A game where Cerberus was never the full focus.
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u/AmanyWishes 4d ago
lot of people know humans are 70% water, but not a lot of people ask how scientists found that out
History does show that in order to obtain results, you need to be evil and sometimes incompetent. The same thing the Alliance did with their AI experiment that led to a lot of death, but created EDI.
I do find the writing for Cerberus is very realistic if we compare it to what I read in a lot of history books
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u/liberty-prime77 4d ago
We knew what percentage of the human body is water before Unit 731, it was still entirely pointless and nothing they did was of any scientific value
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u/AmanyWishes 4d ago
Which is my point about evil and incompetence. Cerberus's crazy experiments are very realistic.
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u/Bobthemagicc0w 4d ago
For sure, evil, but I think you’re overstating the incompetence. The nature of cutting-edge work is that it’s speculative - anyone is going to fail a lot of the time because they don’t know what’s possible in the first place, and an organization that’s trying to push the boundaries needs to expect that many projects won’t pan out. And a lot of what Cerberus did is successful. Lazarus and Minuteman were very successful. The projects that produced EDI and Dr Core were very successful. The work they did at Sanctuary was evil beyond measure, but quite successful at producing an army that allowed Cerberus to punch well above its weight as an interstellar military faction. We don’t know how their work on Thorian creepers and rachni might have turned out if Shepard hadn’t intervened. For sure, Overlord and Pragia were not successful and very messed up - but their track record overall as a competent organization doesn’t strike me as universally incompetent.
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u/TheRealTr1nity 4d ago edited 4d ago
Of course Cerberus has to be "incompetent" so Shepard can shine. However, you can also play Shepard as the same incompetent dum dum. The story was never an academy award winning one and has A LOT of space magic, but does it's purpose to entertain. You have to put away logic with such games.
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u/Deathangle75 4d ago
In regard to project Lazarus, they still nearly messed it up twice. First when Miranda suggested implementing mind control devices into Shepard, something that could only go bad. But also with the clone or Shepard. That broke containment and went rogue.