Poll: mass effect 2 endgame decision (spoilers!!!) and speculation

[Nerdstar]

OK, for those of you that have completed mass effect 2, at the end your given a choice to either to preserve the facility both to use against the Reapers and to "secure humanity's future against the Reapers and beyond."according to the illusive man. or completely destroy the facility, when ME3 comes out,which should i upload?

i ask because the first time i did it i saved the base and gave it to the illusive man,even though if felt like i was giving the devil the keys to the kingdom so to speak(this was before i found out that the illusive man and Cerberus flipped there shit and threw in with the reapers, alothe I'm sure there's more to it than that and we don't have the whole story)the second time i did the opposite and nuked that thing from orbit. up till now iv played the white knight (saved the council,and pretty much spread love,joy and peace wherever i went to via diplomacy and bullets)

also id be interested in hearing some theories as to why cerberus and the illusive man as seemingly turned against shepherd and humanity (so it seems), the only thing i can really come up with is that the illusive man sees the reapers as humanity's next form of evolution, and is doing everything to "advance" us to that stage, but id love to hear some alternate theories and what not

 

[Corkydog]

I'm just mad that Kasumi died during the vent thing when she was loyal and clearly the best infiltrator/tech person on my team...I mean WTF?

 

[Indecipherable]

I'm just mad that Kasumi died during the vent thing when she was loyal and clearly the best infiltrator/tech person on my team...I mean WTF?

I guess you were wrong.

 

[Nerdstar]

I'm just mad that Kasumi died during the vent thing when she was loyal and clearly the best infiltrator/tech person on my team...I mean WTF?

who'd you have as your other team leader?

 

[Corkydog]

I'm just mad that Kasumi died during the vent thing when she was loyal and clearly the best infiltrator/tech person on my team...I mean WTF?

who'd you have as your other team leader?

Miranda, because she suggested it in the first place. She ended up dead because she wasn't loyal, so was that why?

 

[Nerdstar]

I'm just mad that Kasumi died during the vent thing when she was loyal and clearly the best infiltrator/tech person on my team...I mean WTF?

who'd you have as your other team leader?

Miranda, because she suggested it in the first place. She ended up dead because she wasn't loyal, so was that why?

yes thats sort of why you see,

A Fire-team Leader is required for the second team. The briefing conversation mentions that this member must be experienced in leading a team. one of the Ideal candidates is either Garrus, Jacob, or Miranda
Anyone else will get your specialist technician killed, even if a loyal Tali, Legion, or Kasumi was chosen. your Miranda wasn't loyal(she didn't have here head in the game so to speak)so she probably encountered heavy resistance on the way to the door and was unable to really get there to reinforce the door thus forcing you to close it manually, thus makeing katsumi take one in the face despite being one of the more quallifed techs)

 

[Randomspike]

I blew the base up, but I wanted the option to save the base and give it to another group instead of Cerberus.

 

[PinochetIsMyBro]

also id be interested in hearing some theories as to why cerberus and the illusive man as seemingly turned against shepherd and humanity (so it seems)

With the information we already have, my best guess would be that the proximity of the Reapers has literally driven him insane due to his exposure to a Reaper indoctrination thingy earlier on in his life.

He's trying to kill Shepard either because the Reapers want him dead(the insane bit mentioned above) or because their plan for Shepard is so horrifyingly bad that he honestly thinks humanity's best chance is for Shepard to be killed and his corpse kept away from them.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

I blew the base up, but I wanted the option to save the base and give it to another group instead of Cerberus.

I second this. Why was giving it to Cerberus the only option?

EDIT: I wanted to give it to the Council.

 

[fnartilter]

also id be interested in hearing some theories as to why cerberus and the illusive man as seemingly turned against shepherd and humanity (so it seems)

With the information we already have, my best guess would be that the proximity of the Reapers has literally driven him insane due to his exposure to a Reaper indoctrination thingy earlier on in his life.

He's trying to kill Shepard either because the Reapers want him dead(the insane bit mentioned above) or because their plan for Shepard is so horrifyingly bad that he honestly thinks humanity's best chance is for Shepard to be killed and his corpse kept away from them.

Yeah, I just read the comic recently, and it confirmed my suspicions about TIM secretly being influenced by reapers or just evil. It occurred to me that with the Cerberus stuff done in the first game, and that 'fake' betrayal on the collector ship, that TIM is a very good lier. Combined with tech (visible in his eyes- they look somewhat similar to Saren's).

I will make a game where I keep the base though, see what happens in ME3.

 

[varulfic]

In the end I chose to give it to the illusive man, because we really didn't know enough about the reapers to effectively fight them... though I'm a bit peeved that I only got those two choices. I would have liked to turn over the ship to the citadel council, so that all alien races could benefit from it's discovery.

 

[snowpuppy]

i didn't give them the base, it would indoctrinate them.

 

[IBlackKiteI]

I think that the whole idea of The Illusive Man being indoctrinated if you don't destroy the base is very unlikely for a few reasons.

1, TIM's reason for coming after Shephard in ME3 will certainly be the same whether you destroyed the base or not. There isn't going to be a completely different playthrough for both outcomes in the final mission. It would be unnecessary and take way too much time to make, especially with all the other variables in the games coming together.

2, The Collector tech in the base is not confirmed to have an indoctrinative effect. It is likely but not proven.

3, There is no way in hell TIM himself would personally go near the thing if it could indoctrinate people. Hell, he probably wouldn't even chance it. Assuming he did personally go in the Collector base, Indoctrination takes a long time to take effect, and TIM wouldn't stay there long enough for it to take hold.

4, Indoctrination completely wrecks a person. Assuming TIM did somehow get indoctrinated in the first place, he wouldn't be sane enough to even command Cerberus or send people to chase Shep' all around the galaxy.


However, all that said,

With the information we already have, my best guess would be that the proximity of the Reapers has literally driven him insane due to his exposure to a Reaper indoctrination thingy earlier on in his life.

Where is this ever mentioned in ME? 'Cos I've heard nothing of it.
I'm not saying your wrong or anything, I just know nothing about it, but if that is true then TIM getting Indoctrinated/Reaper-ified/Whatever would be a lot more likely.

-

I decided not to blow up the base. Its a total fucking gold mine full of information on and technology of the Reapers and Collectors. Sure Cerberus is a pretty damn questionable organisation, but why quite possibly doom the entire galaxy just because of that?

Also, think about this.
If you could give it to the Alliance then they'd likely reverse engineer everything to make weapons systems, which could then allow them to become even more powerful in the galaxy. Even if they don't actually use said tech/weaponry they'd still intimidate everyone just by being in possession of it. Along with this they wouldn't give a crap about the Reapers.

If you could give it to the Citadel Council they will still have their heads up their asses. They either wouldn't utilise its full potential or attempt to do the same thing the Alliance would, possibly causing a total political shitstorm of epic proportions among the various races.

Cerberus however has at least some idea what the hell they're doing, and they don't have enough of a presence to screw up the galaxy even more than it already is if they got their hands on the base.

 

[willofbob]

I blew up the base, but have a sneaking suspicion that this will cause William Shepard to die in the next game

 

[Fanboy]

Easy. TIM is the new Saren. He thinks we are all fucked, so he'd rather be a good dog and bark for the reapers. Saren thought he was saving himself by making himself useful, TIM probably thinks the same; He's helping the reapers because he thinks it's the best option for humanity.

It's not sound logic, but I'm sure there is indoctrination involved, as there was for Saren.

Also, I understand the annoyance over only being able to hand the base to Cerberus, but that's because people are not seeing the situation correctly. The choice is whether to save the base or destroy it, not who you give it to. Cerberus has already decided they will take it, and the only way to stop them from doing so is to nuke it. You could go to the council/alliance and scream til you're blue in the face, but they don't have any interest in it. Even then, by that point Cerberus will have established control over the base, and the Council and Alliance can't simply declare war on Cerberus because "Shepard sayz dey R doing BAD tings!!"

 

[manythings]

I did both. 5 times I destroyed it, 3 times I handed it over.

 

[Nerdstar]

I think that the whole idea of The Illusive Man being indoctrinated if you don't destroy the base is very unlikely for a few reasons.

1, TIM's reason for coming after Shephard in ME3 will certainly be the same whether you destroyed the base or not. There isn't going to be a completely different playthrough for both outcomes in the final mission. It would be unnecessary and take way too much time to make, especially with all the other variables in the games coming together.

2, The Collector tech in the base is not confirmed to have an indoctrinative effect. It is likely but not proven.

3, There is no way in hell TIM himself would personally go near the thing if it could indoctrinate people. Hell, he probably wouldn't even chance it. Assuming he did personally go in the Collector base, Indoctrination takes a long time to take effect, and TIM wouldn't stay there long enough for it to take hold.

4, Indoctrination completely wrecks a person. Assuming TIM did somehow get indoctrinated in the first place, he wouldn't be sane enough to even command Cerberus or send people to chase Shep' all around the galaxy.


However, all that said,

With the information we already have, my best guess would be that the proximity of the Reapers has literally driven him insane due to his exposure to a Reaper indoctrination thingy earlier on in his life.

Where is this ever mentioned in ME? 'Cos I've heard nothing of it.
I'm not saying your wrong or anything, I just know nothing about it, but if that is true then TIM getting Indoctrinated/Reaper-ified/Whatever would be a lot more likely.

-

I decided not to blow up the base. Its a total fucking gold mine full of information on and technology of the Reapers and Collectors. Sure Cerberus is a pretty damn questionable organisation, but why quite possibly doom the entire galaxy just because of that?

Also, think about this.
If you could give it to the Alliance then they'd likely reverse engineer everything to make weapons systems, which could then allow them to become even more powerful in the galaxy. Even if they don't actually use said tech/weaponry they'd still intimidate everyone just by being in possession of it. Along with this they wouldn't give a crap about the Reapers.

If you could give it to the Citadel Council they will still have their heads up their asses. They either wouldn't utilise its full potential or attempt to do the same thing the Alliance would, possibly causing a total political shitstorm of epic proportions among the various races.

Cerberus however has at least some idea what the hell they're doing, and they don't have enough of a presence to screw up the galaxy even more than it already is if they got their hands on the base.

indeed, i didnt think it was indoctrantion for just those resons(the man didnt get to where he is now by trouncing around brainwashing spaceships) like i said in my first post, the only real "logical" reason that i can see TIM betraying shepherd is that in his twisted mind he advancing humanity(granted as iv said I'm sure there's more to it then that and I'm hopeing that is some sort of batman gambit orchestrated by the illusive man), similar yet different to sarens in that rather than being just pawns there going to BE reapers and i don't think any indoctrination was needed to get him to go down this path of madness

also id like a source on that ME comic hinting at TIM's indoctraon as well.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

I gave them the base. I reasoned that there HAD to be some data in there to find a weakpoint for the reapers.

Although I wish there had been an option to tell Illusive Man "If I hear even a WHISPER of you using this for illegitimate means (oppressing other species, etc), I will shoot you myself". I don't trust the little bugger.