Cerberus | Mass Effect 

Good work! Make More about the UNSC.

That's some really cool lore right there

In many ways, Shepard would become more worthy of the moniker Cerberus than the actual organization.

thats epic

@@stephenkenney8290 Because Shepherd could SPOT the danger coming?

@@DetectiveLance PUN ALERT!

That's the reapers for you. Turn those who had the ability to fight the reapers against others who can fight the reapers.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. And when you think about it, with Cerberus so strictly centralized to one specific person, combined with Cerberus being so well connected across the galaxy, The Elusive Man is the perfect target for them to strike. And considering the technology and knowledge the Reapers have gained over countless eons, finding out where and how to target The Elusive Man, would be trivial. I still need to actually play the third game, but from everything this video and what I've heard about the third game, combined with the lure I picked up from playing the first few games, I think Cerberus turning evil makes a lot more sense than you may think - ESPECIALLY once they started researching how to hack human biology.

Actually a lot of people that pose a threat to Reapers, Reapers dealt with them mercilessly. Liara's Mum, Saren, Alliance Scientists and then Cerberus with Illusive Man.

I am a little disappointed with how they were handled in 3. I was hoping they would be the rengade option for Shepard rather than a pure antagonist.

@elijah mikle and they never even use that reaper mech! During my first play of ME2 i chose to keep the human reaper, i thought that it would have been cool to pilot it in battle against the reapers, but the damn mech never appeared again in ME3.

They're an unregulated Intelligence agency run by a guy who was indoctrinated literally the entire game series. That's not irony, that's exactly what you would expect. They betrayed their stated purpose immediately by divorcing themselves from any sort of restraint by the greater will of humanity; at best they would act as an authoritarian crypto-state enslaving us as thoroughly as they feared aliens would, at worse they were a constant rolling disaster of failed research programs that posed a larger threat to humanity than anything they actually stopped, and systemically denied anything resembling and diplomacy. Cerberus was always a bad idea, born out of a need for control that is realistically impossible. It exists because of existential cowardice. Of shame for losing the First Contact War, because of the arrogant assumption that we should have won. It was always angry, childish, self-righteous, blinkered, and arrogant. The Illusive man was just charismatic and smart enough to make it seem noble, and that was a lie.

@unknown Unknown I stopped reading with all the typos. If you're not going to even try to spell the proper nouns right you either don't care, or are attempting to troll me. Debating you is pointless. If you have an actual rhetorical point try responding with enough consideration and respect that the entire block of text isn't an onerous labor to parse. Otherwise you're not worth the effort to convince. Bye

​@@morganrobinson8042 Without the immoral research of Cerberus, no Cmd Shepard. Without Shepard to fight the Collector, the Humanity wouldn't have been able to defence itself.

@@omegaman7377 And that justifies everything? Using Thresher maws on foot soldiers? Jamming that one guy into a Geth instance so it drove them both mad? Literally using Dragons Teeth on people? Literally none of those helped anybody, and the last made a horde of mind-controlled shock troopers out of refugees in the third game. The problem with consequential reasoning is that as long as you get a passable result nothing else matters. It has no consideration for either necessity of an action or it's other consequences, as long as you get what you want. It is wasteful at best, and outright evil at worst. And while I can accept the premise that there are times when the need for results will outstrip ethical concerns, Cerberus never operated in any other way. The ends always justified the means, and if unnecessary suffering was created it was never their concern. And that never bore out. In fact, Miranda's professional ethics and Shepard's crew were about the only time Cerberus bothered to sanitize their behavior, and it was done deliberately to give a good impression in the latter part. And they were about the only parts of Cerberus not to turn into something actively hostile to human survival. You're excusing everything Cerberus did on the pretense that it did ultimately save everyone, when that isn't nessicarilty true. They did as much or more to hinder Shepard's efforts as they ever did to help.

@@morganrobinson8042 I understand both sides of the story. One they took things way to far at almost every turn as you said. On the other side humanity is drastically outgunned and outclassed by Asari Turians and Salarians. So they need to take drastic shit to make giant leaps and bounds trying to catch up. Any and everything is allowed in their eyes aslong as it provides a benefit. Such as the torture facility where Jack got raised in a effort to give Asari a run for their money. And boy did they get results isn't Jack one of the strongest biotics in existence ? Imagine an army of Jacks that follow orders.

Federation over Facism!

@@jakespacepiratee3740 yesw

I still don’t believe it is a thing. I won’t until I see an official release about it.

@@martinjrgensen8234 And even if it turns out to be real, I'm not the least bit excited about it. It wouldn't be the first "Remaster" that basically just sells the same game as before with very minor changes, or is actually worse than the Original.

@@UltimateSpinDash just enjoy it ffs

Can't wait what amazing things EA has prepared for us jaja

I fear for a woke version of mass effect. I will wait for the critic before buying. But i hope.

TIM is sharp dresser

Martin Sheen's greatest role to date. Change my mind.

@@GlidingZephyr Indeed

@@GlidingZephyr Hard to say when you look at The West Wing. Too close to call.

that he does!

Could not agree more. ME3 was a letdown to me storywise. First of all I hated the mess the military made of my pretty ship, which I loved to just walk around in in Me2. Also the amoral pragmatic organization for some reason became a cartoon villain.

Imagine if you choose to control the collector base and ME 3 started with you still loyal to Cerberus. Anderson meets you at a bar on earth while you're on shoreleave when the Reapers attack

I personally liked it, as it made sense within the lore. In ME2, while still bad guys they were doing the right thing, but during the reaper war they were so into using reaper tech that it allowed the Reapers to take control of them and use them for the reapers gain while they still believed they were doing the right thing. Worked well to build the Reapers as truly masterminds as they fought not only directly but turned the races they genocided against each other in a proxy war

See, you should take a look at ME1 Cerberus. That whole thing about a Cerberus taco cart killing all the scientists and taking over the base? That's Entirely accurate. Also, they were absolutely speciesist idiot bad guys. Prone to murdering high ranking systems alliance military officers fir being insufficiently corrupt, luring SA marines into thresher maw nests just to record what happened, nonsense like that. And that's when they weren't experimenting on reaper husking tech right near population centres (such s they are on new colony worlds) with basically no safety precautions. They were evil stupid from the ground up. ME2 completely retconned that, and a bunch of other stuff. From what I've heard 3 apparently tried to reconcile the two or something? Actually, ME2's story was kind of a disaster in general if you'd actually played the first one.

@elijah mikle George Lucas didn't do that.

;)

Security breach, not a good idea.

Just go to their first video

Heresy

We a need a investigation into the Walmart multiverseal Empire

Also, Mirandas father who works for Cerberus is Henry Lawson. Who shares the name with a famous Australian writer and poet.

are they flying the flag of Cerberus?

That implies it wasn't ever a tool of the Repears. The expended works have hinted that Jack Harper, The Illusive Man was indoctrinated or at least had been set down the path towards it. It goes to show how dangerous the Repears really are and makes one wonder if the reason so many cycles had a difficult time figuring out the Repears trap and plan was because they left a lot of stuff to indoctrinated beings unwittingly.

No matter what happens, humans will never leave the leadership of the human death:kill ratio scoreboard

Reaper indoctrination is one hell of a drug

By that time they were pretty much indoctrinated by the reapers

@@blackvial shame we never got to see how that happened

@@mikhailbychkov5042 it's pretty easy to figure out, they've been studying reaper tech for a while and the vast majority of reaper tech causes indoctrination

@@blackvial that's not my point. At the end of ME2 the illusive man, knew full well the dangers of indoctrination. Could he fall to it due to his hubris? Certainly, ME2 definitely shows that it's possible. But to leave with a Cerberus that is fully committed to defending humanity to one that wages open war only in a span of a few months in universe is too drastic. Sure we can assume from diaries and parts of dialogue to what happened during that time but not how it happened. Which is a damn shame

RU-vidman

Least until they're destroyed next game by turning full darkside

Cerberus IS humanity!

Call the bondulance!

Youman?

It will come soon, very soon.

There was a delay to fit the new update so they didnt need to restart halfway through iirc

One word, Indoctrination

@@qwefhj3011 neural degradation caused by long term indoctrination

@@qwefhj3011 just because it makes sense canonically n whatnot doesn't mean it was good writing

@@Gingerninja800 it explains why cerberus turned into a dumb villain organization tho. ik it is dumb writing but it has an explanation lol

@Bethesda sucks, but Zerglings still are cute. yeah sure bud trilogy was perfect amirite. the only story wise good game in mass effect series was the first one. 2 was too cartooney and the only thing that saved it was its gameplay mechanics. i dont even want to speak about the 3. every buildup that came from 1 and 2 was discarded and finished the trilogy with a stupid space brat and colors ending. the only thing that was good in 3 was the reflection of hopelessness of the situation. also even a 9 yrs old could finish the trilogy with a better ending than space brat ending so your "dUh i WaNnA sEe uR wRitInG bRoh" argument is lazy as heck

Nope, they just bought the line that was being laid down about how Cerberus was acting in humanities best interest when half of the side quests were cleaning up their horrible disasters, especially if you counted the first game's Cerberus missions. They decided to let themselves be convinced despite what we already knew and were still seeing. They allowed for a benefit of the doubt that wasn't earned on the goodwill of Shepard's resurrection, and followed the Paragon path out of habit in most cases without really thinking about the implications of what was going on past the immediate emotional response. Most of these people simply failed to care enough to bother understanding what happened, and came away with an impression curated by the group they were meant to be judging. This is why you can never trust anyone trying to sell you something. You did good. You actually figured out they were horrible, when it was being actively whitewashed by characters in the game, if not narrative.

@@morganrobinson8042 Horrible is relative in this game. Cerberus did develop something to sterilize a race like the Salarians. Or used it like the Turians. it is a brutal world. “Lots of ways to help people. Sometimes heal patients; sometimes execute dangerous people. Either way helps.”

@@morganrobinson8042 Well, I don't think it's about people not caring about the plot - after all, people who barely skimmed through the dialogue are unlikely to end up in this comment section - I think it has more to do with glorification of the whole "rogue cop who doesn't play by the rules" thing. Its a very famous and fleshed out trope, and I largely suspect that most people saw Illusive Man talking about "doing what needs to be done" and were like "Oh, I know this" - and just never diviated from that perception from there. So while there is personal responsibility to be had for failing to apply critical thinking (we are all susceptable to that), I think it's importnat to note that this is a systemic problem in media - video games especially.

@@omegaman7377 Horrible is very much not relative in ME. "Commiting heinous crimes is never the answer to any problem ever" is a very persistent theme throughout the trilogy. You are clearly referring to Mordin's story there as an example of "sometimes bad things need to be done" but its literally the opposite of what his story is about. He spends his life lamenting what he has done to Krogans and eventually dies to fix it. He once says that he still believes what he and his team had done was justified at the time with the information they had, but he also notes several times how little of the actual concequences of their actions they predicted. Like, most of the trilogy is about you running around fixing the concequences of someone "doing what needs to be done", and I don't know how much more transparent the writers could have been about this.

Shepard no!

That's exactly what happens though? Throughout the game you constanty pick up defected Cerberus members. There is like a whole tab for them in the war menu, and a signifcant chunk of the multiplayer operatives are former Cerberus agents.

@@ГлебЧерепанов-з3ч ; Oh yeah, forgot about them. Been a while since I did anything ME3. However I was referring to more of the higher ups and a Cerberus flotilla or two. Thanks for that reminder anyway.

Do remember that phone game, it had that rogue dragoon.

According to the descriptions for two multiplayer characters (the Phoenix Project vanguard and adept,) this did happen, granted it was a long time before the Battle of Earth. Biotic soldiers in Cerberus defected when they learned about reaper implants. Instead, they joined Admiral Hackett and the N7 Special Ops. It's worth noting that this project is believed to have produced the dragoon, so they are essentially non-indoctrinated dragoons (which piggybacks off of arthur ryan's comment.)

Bro, it's been a year now, you may have changed your mind, but I'll still say: you wrote a completely wrong theory, leaving out a lot of facts. Yes, Cerberus needed the technology from the Collectors' base. That's true. However, that technology was needed to fend off a Reaper's Invasion in the future. Cerberus' secondary mission was to save the human colonies that had been attacked, because no one cared, the Council didn't pay any attention to it because it was another sector's territory, and the System Alliance took no action at all to protect the colonies, the Alliance only investigated colonies that had already been destroyed. The Illusive Man would never allow civilians to suffer at the hands of aliens because he knows from experience what it's like to have civilians attacked (during the First Contact War, the Turians bombed a peaceful colony on Shanxi when TIM was a mercenary soldier in the Alliance. Because of the Turians' actions, TIM lost his best friends).

Awesome game too bad isn't avabile to downloaf

@@unitednationsspacecommand6502 tpb will probably have ut

@@viceadmiraljassasulrana9082 Thanks! Still UNSC Doesn't advise Priracy.

@@unitednationsspacecommand6502 weakness

@@viceadmiraljassasulrana9082 No we are not hahah. UNSC Stronger than ever

They care more about control than they do Humanity, they abandoned that when they literally dehumanized their soldiers by turning them into brain-fucked cyborgs.

@@jakespacepiratee3740 that's more due to Repear indoctrination which is hinted at in the non game works to have effected Jack Harper long ago. Removing that the existence of Cerberus does make some sense as a precaution. The Citadel does have a tendency to use races, go overboard in their rulings to the point of absurdity, or throw allies under the bus.

Suffer not the heretic.

Damn right.

Meanwhile at Cerberus... (Sees mutants and Xeno tech) TIM: yes.

Suffer not the Mon'Keigh

FOR THE EMPEROR FOR HUMANITY

@Para el libro修 That's because humanity basically _were_ the children of the galactic community. Many of the species had interstellar space-flight long, long, _looooonng_ before humanity reached that milestone... And many of the members of the galactic community that had contributed much more than humanity were _still_ waiting to have a say in how things were done. Cerberus were made up by people who were either ignorant, or intitled, or fearful... Or all three.

Humans are superior to all other Life Point s except for the elephants

Arrogance, i don't think so. The conclusion of the First Contact was a surprise for the member of the Counsel. Human has a good reason to be proud. The Turians were surprised by our resilience.But the Counsel see the humanity as some sort of Rachni treat. Human are strong warriors and they are very fast learner. His xenophobia was justified, every races was hiding Prothean technology at a critical time. And the Counsel didn't care about the attack of the human colony.

@@omegaman7377 I hear what you're saying but the arrogance I was speaking of was the notion that Cerberus thought that they could control the Reapers. You could say that that was due to indoctrination but there are countless references in game and in other media that shows that Cerberus' goal of using any means available to elevate only humanity to dominate and rule all other races.

Well EA may not have a choice considering all the lawsuits and the gambling law violations in the Netherlands, so there my be SOME hope. But with that being said, I realize that has very little relevance to your response, but still...

@@shockwave487 Well i think that the dlcs really complete the games. Especially the citadel and shadowbroker dlc. It just makes the expirience more rounded and a proper remaster should include everything, to deliver the full experience and in many cases nostalgia. It would do the games the well deserved justice, if EA provided everything for everyone

We are judging you by what you want. That's why we judge you

"It's nationalism, not Facism!"

Villain?

Sounds a lot better than what we got.

Finally someone understands! This is very clearly what Cerberus was supposed to be the moment they were introduced! How did nobody pick up on this?

@@xvx_k1r1t0_xvxkillme7 Because the Templins audience has been full of Fashies ever since they started covering 40K.

@@jakespacepiratee3740 What's this about Warhammer 40k fans?

@@xvx_k1r1t0_xvxkillme7 I didn't notice back in 2010 or 2012. I didn't notice until after the rise of the alt right when I started seeing their talking points.

I thought it was Hyperion

Please may they do the Cybrex.

And Kai Leng!

And most of the Imperium of Man.

"But I want dem sweet Reaper tech, how is Hooman goin to b master race if we dont have Reaper Tech? Plz become Indoctrinated nau thx"

"But I want dem sweet Reaper tech, how is Hooman goin to b master race if we dont have Reaper Tech? Plz become Indoctrinated nau thx"

Man, Helltaker was such a wack game. Sharply dressed demon girls.

They are the good guys in me1 me2 and me3

@@top-notch8277 Example of person I don't get

I personally didn't mind. I always knew they'de cause more harm than good in the long run. Never agreed with 'em.

They were generic villains in ME1. And in ME2 they were as well if you looked a little bit deeper, only they made sure Shepard saw them from the most sympathetic perspective through the whole story.

@@owenparris7490 Same here

It's their own fault for messing with Reaper tech

Yeah basically intergalactic "SPECTRE" of the Bond verse except the Council would sue

Well... even in ME2 it is mentioned that only the Illusive Man knows how big truly Cerberus is. Not even that, we get to see their space station, which in on itself would probably house tens of thousands people. Add to that that they had shipyards big enough and efficient enough to rebuild and upgrade the Normandy, and you can see that this organization was already powerful in ME2. In ME3 they were indoctrinated, which could also explain their numbers in the field. All of the non-essential personnel would become troopers after being indoctrinated.

What would have been better if Illusive Man was indoctinated, but there were many cerberus sub factions that were sympathetic to Shepard, and a battle between Cerberus forces loyal to the original goal of stopping the reapers and those indoctrinated.

@@MasterGhostf agreed, but what happened in ME3 also made sense. They could have been indoctrinated for example by a "mandatory chip enchancement" or sth like that. That would cause for all troops to be indoctrinated without residence. Besides there was a motive like that. For example the mission where you meet Jacob.

@@NomadziorBG There actually is a text log in one of the side missions which is some diary entries from a Cerberus recruit that talks about how their training regimen involves cybernetic enhancements (as seen in the very first mission to Mars in ME3 as well), which shifted the tone of their log entries from casual and personal to more serious and emotionless. It's pretty clear that all of Cerberus' armed forces are implanted with Reaper tech. Anyone that wasn't indoctrinated would have had no military power to bring to bear. With that said, the fact that they would even use those implants without any precautions or backup plans in case using literal Reaper tech backfires is just beyond incompetent

@@Lazarultos unless the Illusive Man was already Indoctrinated. But I'm not justifying BioWare. They made some poor choices in regards to ME3. Which is sad because I honestly love the game as much as the entire ME universe.

Continue? With Andromeda? HA! That has a bigger chance of happening than Bioware salvaging Anthem!

​@@jakespacepiratee3740 yes, still a bit of a shame though. The implications that Cerberus was the organisation behind the andromeda initiative (or at least a major contributor) had a lot of potential, especially considering that Cora is probably related to Jack Harper, aka The Illusive Man. If they had managed the story better and solved the technical issues BEFORE launch, it might have been a proper mass effect successor. The Combat/traversal were after all quite fun.

Yeah theres nothing wrong with thinking Humanity is the best in our World, but in other Universes, especially in Mass Effect, it's very Facist.

What is racist in protecting your species against other not so benevolent species?

Any orginizations that says "humanity first" in a galaxy with a lot of other species will become the bad gut

Same

And what happens if that cost leads to our extinction?

@@blackvial We will survive.

Have you seen some of that xeno booty in the mass effect universe? Im gonna get myself a piece of that heresy or not....

Cerberus is just that Illusive, man.

@@ravager2-636 Eyyyyyyyyyyy he did the name, he said the thing

Para military force, used to be a Secret branch of the Human Alliance military, probably, but then went Rogue in ME1. Became the good guys you fight for in 22 then went full evil and you play a key role in hampering and finally destroying in 3

@@robertagu5533 This. Many people don't remember the original background of Cerberus given in ME 1. Cerberus' very nature is actually a huge retcon, but one that proved very popular I guess. I'm ever so slightly disappointed that the Templin Institute didn't mention that angle at all.

@@robertagu5533 I do not think they really went rogue, before the third game. I think the rumour was to protect the reputation of the Alliance and the Humanity. After all, the humanity for the member of the Citadel are a bunch of morons. But a bunch that are able to fight.

He didn't pay his taxes

Yes ruined pretty much everything.

Thanks to Mac Walters

... go play ME1. Cerberus were Always stupid.

If so, then why were Alien colonists allowed to come along?

@@jakespacepiratee3740 keep up appearances and even Cerberus don’t have the resources to fund the whole andromeda project. By allowing all aliens to attend it move suspiciouson away from the real intention. Plus Cerberus would of laid ground work in place in the form of sympathetic supporters of there doctrine within the human ark.