The Final Choice In Mass Effect 2 Is Horseshit: A Diatribe

[xvbones]

I think what the actual choice here is whether or not Shepard will allow an avowedly pro-human organization (they say 'pro-human' in the same way that neo-nazi orgs say 'pro-white', btw) that is more or less run by Dick Cheney's smooth talking clone will get their hands on ancient technology of unspeakable destructive power.

The word 'Illusive' means 'illusionary'.
This could be taken to mean he has been lying to you since day one and actually plans to use the Collector base to wipe out all non-human races in the galaxy, or to install himself as a galactic emperor or whatever.

I agree with you completely, that choice was presented very poorly.

If they had put more emphasis on the fact that you don't actually know what this ************ is going to do with that base, it would have been far more palatable.

 

[Thanatos5150]

I just wanted to give the tech to the Council... or maybe the Migrant Fleet, why does it have to be Cerberus or Nobody?

 

[xvbones]

I just wanted to give the tech to the Council... or maybe the Migrant Fleet, why does it have to be Cerberus or Nobody?

Fuck, dude, give it to Mordin Solus and keep it all for ourselves.

We're the ones that will need that shit the most, right?

 

[Brad Shepard]

"Reapers wanted to create a Human Reaper for cultural reasons, not military strength."

I could be wrong but I believe someone (Mordin or Legion, I think) in one of the conversations that "they have no culture." But maybe he was talking about collectors. Or maybe I have a disease that causes me to imagine facts that make me seem correct, I don't know.

He did say that about the Collectors. I think assuming the same holds true for the Reapers is illogical, since there are many ways they differ from their salves.For example, Collectors don't have emotions, but the Reapers clearly due. My explanation could be completley wrong, but it's one I think could work and I would be satisfied with it, since it explains the larva and also explains why the Reaper preform the galaxy wide harvest.

Now the Council's idiocy is something I can't even think of an explanation for. They piss me off more than every other plot related problem in Mass Effect 2.

Lets not even talk about there excuse to disclame the reapers, being more or less "Saren just wanted to fuck with your head some more."

 

[ThaBenMan]

But Reaper tech is sort of inherently evil - look at how the Reaper IFF betrayed the Normandy once it was installed. It comes from evil, sentient machines. Who knows how the Collector base could fuck humanity over once they become reliant on it.

 

[Chicago Ted]

As I said, Shepard has killed about 1.5 Reapers with relative ease and I have no doubt that if Cerberus tried to build a Reaper Shepard could destroy it, and even the threat of Shepard being able to take it down should keep them earnest.

Shepard killed something that I wouldn't call .5, but more like .1 of a Reaper. As for what you call killing the other one, Shepard didn't really have a hand in it. The Citadel's navy was completely obliterated as well as most of the Alliance's. The only reason they were able to kill the Reaper was because they pretty well ambushed it when it couldn't fight back as I recall.

Killing the Reaper is no small task.

 

[godofallu]

The reaper at the end was made out of blended humans, and wasn't even finished yet.

Do you really want to bring the blueprints for a superweapon made out of blended humans back to Cerberus, or the rest of the galaxy for that natter?

If you think nukes were bad, just wait till you see what reapers are like. Stockpiling 1500 of those would be bad for the galaxy even if they don't get used.

 

[DazBurger]

In Mass Effect 1, there is a few side missions, where you meet Cerberus and... Woot they suck!

When someone says that there isent the thing they would not do for power, then its because that THERE ISENT THE THING THEY WOULD NOT DO FOR POWER.

Seriously...


Inductrination wouldny prolly be one of the things they would stop at.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Honestly I think you're plain ol' wrong.

Blowing it up is safer in every sense, removing whatever Reaper tech may potentially reactivate and pose a threat/corrupt anyone investigating it, as well as keeping it out of the Illusive Man's hands.

Hell, even trying to preserve it for the Council/Alliance is too risky as Cerberus are already proven to have massive resources at their disposal, more than likely enough to find a way to hijack the Collector base.

That's why it's a Paragon choice. Renegades prefer to screw the risks, for the chance of a higher reward; That's exactly what keeping the base intact is. Remember, a "Renegade" choice isn't always an "Evil" choice, this isn't like KotOR.

Edited for clarification.

this. we have seen multiple times in the game when they tried to mess with reaper tech, and ended up getting messed up or having it reactivated, so i would have destroyed it too having seen what it can do. Reaper tech has so many backdoors for the reaper to reinfiltrate or leave a mark on whoever is studying it that i would say its too dangerous to have in anyone's hands

 

[Booze Zombie]

The basic idea is that understanding how Reapers work would make the Cerberus group use said knowledge to make their own Reaper and probably genocide every other race in the galaxy, "because humanity is awesome".

So, you had a choice between becoming your enemy or fighting on your own terms, I'll take the second one.
Not out of some romantic notion, but because if you become reaper... the enemy will know exactly how you're running, because you're using their tech!

Also, Cerberus committing genocide on the galaxy would suck.

 

[Vrex360]

I somewhat doubt that Cerberus was ever helping me with this mission out of the kindness of their hearts. At least not the Illusive Man anyway. I knew that they clearly wanted something out of me and given their radical pro-human and highly amoral history I really didn't want them getting their hands on what amounts to Reaper technology.

It is a shame I couldn't offer it to the Alliance or the Council but at the end of the day, to quote Samara:
"It is too powerful for anyone to use."
Hence, the only option was for it to be destroyed. That's my logic anyway.

 

[Zaydin]

My 2 cents

Collector base is reaper tech.
So are the mass relays.
In ME1 we learn that the reaper's built the relays so that civilisation would follow along with that technology, meaning that they would encounter little to no surprise's (dont forget they are like the geth only on a much much much larger scale, for perspective, legion has 1,183 individual programs working in tandem. The average reaper has billions).
If we studied the collector base we wouldnt likely come up with anything that would work against the reapers, the galaxy can then devote its time to researching NEW tech, which WOULD surprise the reapers if they expect us to keep the collector base.

I find the comparison between Geth and Reapers to be inaccurate. Reaper appear to be thousands of minds forming into one, sapient organism. Geth are thousands of minds, but each mind is still a single organism with opinion and thoughts exclusive to itself. They just share these emotions and thoughts among other Geth automatically.

I'm still incredibly surprised no-one has noticed this fact.

Look at the Illusive Man's eyes. He has FUCKING ROBOT EYES!

Hence my theory te Illusive Man is actually a Reaper and there will be some huge twist in ME3.

OT: I took it for playing the role of a 'Hero'. Plus i had a Female Shepard so the dialogue was Much better.

Shepard has those same eyes, just red. Does that mean he is a Reaper as well?

I don't get why so many people pick up on this small detail while completley bypassing others. It makes no sense for the Illusive Man to be a Reaper. Nothing he does in the game is to their benefit, while he does hundreds of things to their detriment. I swear nobody would come to this conclusion if it weren't for those eyes. If those eyes are a strong indication that he could be a Reaper, don't you think he would hide them from the people in the game so they wouldn't come to the same conclusion?

I never thought TIM was a Reaper. I thought he was just a Human-Supremacist who got some sort of cybernetic modifications. It wouldn't surprise me if his eyes turn out to have some sort of data overlay over them. Like a HUD or something that displays information.

 

[Lizmichi]

To be honest I don't agree with you. I don't trust TIM at all and there is no way in hell I was going to give him the Collector base. He's made it clear he has a "means to an end" attitude and I don't trust that he wouldn't just use the base to do more harm then good. He's a human radical and I hated Cerberus from ME1. Threw all of ME2 I hated them more and more. Shepard has the proof that the Reapers are real and now the Council will be forced to do something about it. For all we know he could have some control over the Normandy and EDI so Shepard might not even be able to get to the Citadel. TIM is not dumb to dump money into Shepard and not plain for what he'd do if Shepard turned on him.

Spoiler

Also we have no idea what tech the Reapers and the Collectors had in there so for all we know anyone that uses the base could become indoctrinated like with the dead Reaper. The human Reaper, as EDI had said, was in a very very premature state there for not even close to it's full power. As for why the Reapers would want a human Reaper my bets are on it's how they "reproduce" if you will. They pick one race they feel is best suited for their needs and harvest them. The Keepers are most likely the first race the Reapers changed. Look at the Protheans and what they did.

 

[War Pony]

I blew up the Collector base only because I didn't have the choice to shove it up TIM's ass sideways. The institution Jack came from had gone rogue from underneath the Illusive Man, but that can't be said about all the other projects dealt with previously. I mean, if murdering an Alliance admiral, allowing rachni to spread themselves across several systems and the rest of the Cerberus shitstorm I had to clean up in the first game is all from projects having gone rogue from under TIM, someone really needs to rein that shit in.

I can't really think of any neutral ground there could've been because I honestly don't think there would have been a safe option of studying it safely, what with Reaper technology having that nasty habit of the indoctrination organics.

If anything, I'd be more worried about the fucking Shadow Broker getting his/her/its hands on the location of the Collector base.

 

[Yassen]

I'd agree with the fact Shepard's response to the Illusive Man's order could have been better. But there are plenty of good, logical reasons for blowing the base up. The most obvious one for me is that using the technology of our enemies allows them to know exactly how to beat us. They would know exactly what they are up against.

Think of what Legion said, there are many paths to the same goal, following one path blinds you to another. The Geth chose their own path because they didn't believe in having the future handed to them. Doing it yourself can have unexpected results that, while leading to the same goal, could be done in entirely and even more efficient ways.

Frankly, I think in Mass Effect 3 Bioware will want Shepard and TIM to work together again no matter what choice you made, so I'm guessing the Illusive Man will realise what I said earlier and put his grudge aside until the Reapers are defeated.

Edit: For those of you who said Mass Effect 2 just ended where you began I would disagree. The datapad Joker hands to Shepard at the end would imply that EDI extracted evidence of the Reapers existence and technology while we were there so we finally have the proof we need. Not to mention throughout the game you make quite a few choices that I imagine will have big impact on the state of your army in Mass Effect 3. Besides, it's the middle child remember? It can't have a clear ending.

 

[Souplex]

Actually the renegade option was "Turn the ship over to cerberus", not just plain old "Use the technology against them". I'm not particularly trusting of them, and I was hoping for a middle option like "Turn it over to the alliance/council".

 

[Misterian]

In all fairness Cerberus is considered a terrorist group by the alliance/council and they I doubt they would share the technology with anyone else (Being anti-alien and all)

In a way, that's true.

Sparing the base would mean giving it to Cerberus, and knowing The Illusive Man, he'd use the Collector technology to further the cause of human dominance, even if he also plans to have it used to stop the Reapers.

And the Collectors, mind you, were using humans to make that Human-Reaper, so what if the Illusive Man decides to take the other species of the known galaxy and use them to make a reaper?

Or better yet, what if Cerberus uses the Collector Technology to actively attack or dominade the other races of the Galaxy?

the paragon in destroying the Collector Base seems pretty clear to me, besides, the Alliance managed to kill Sovereign, and they already did well in reverse-engineering his remains from when he died.

I'm pretty sure the only thing Shepard will really have to worry about is having enough allies on his side in his war with the Reapers.

 

[Grey_Focks]

I couldn't see how keeping that thing intact would be a good idea. The derelict reaper pretty much showed us that "researching reaper tech is a no-no", and while use researching the mass relays and other "prothean" technology led to us advancing our civilization 500 years, it also led us to develop our technology and galactic culture (citadel being the hub of civilization, etc) exactly the way the reapers wanted it to so they could do whatever it is they do.

 

[Negatempest]

SPACEY-SPACE SNIP

No, the problem with giving it to the Illusive Man is that you're giving it to the ILLUSIVE MAN. He's a shady, super-secret, and creepy ************ that's basically pulled your leg like 3 times already(AKA using you as a distraction for danger without consulting you AKA playing with your lives).

While studying the Reaper thingy is quite smart, you're giving it to the Illusive Man. Giving it to the Council(while they might destroy it), is more smart as you know what they'd do. And since they only gave you 2 choices, between destroying it so that no one can use it or giving it to the extremely shady and possibly evil man; the best choice is destroying it(at least in my opinion).

I trust the council/alliance as much as I trust the elusive man. Just because Council "represents" all species does not mean they make great choices. Though to be honest I hate the alliance the most. The second Shepard becomes a spectre, they send him/her out to multiple locations to clean up their mess. Are you KIDDING ME!? I finally gain some ground for human kind and you make me your ****ing janitor!? Ungrateful alliance pricks.
At least with Cerberus, you already know they are fishy. While the Alliance uses pretty uniforms to fool you into believing they are good people. Yeah, I didn't like Admiral Hackett. Not because I believe he is a bad character, but because he used me as a janitor more often than Cerberus did. All under the flag of "for humanity".

So... What's your point?

What was my point? That I hate alliance and the council and your post was the best moment to point that out. If it seemed I was aiming at you directly, I apologize.

 

[Negatempest]

There is a very similar forum post on the ME website and might as well post the similar response here. It is true that if we "do" get the base to function for us, we could use the tech against the reapers. But to me there was TOO much of a risk to use it than there was to gain. Let me put in an example from District 9.
***************************************Spoiler**********************************************
In the movie, the main character tampered with an alien object and ended up transforming himself into the alien species.
****************************************Spoiler End*****************************************
What I am saying is this, if we "tampered" with Reaper tech, that is VERY well known to randomly produce Husks and brainwash mortals what do you think I would believe a fully functional Reaper tampered base would do to ANY alien species? I did not see it as "loosing myself", I saw it as "I have seen what this tech has done to MULTIPLE people. I am not going to give this tech to have an advanced/special ops organization get brainwashed by Reapers."

P.S. I have no idea how to hide spoilers, so if anyone could give me advice I would be happy.

For spoilers use (spoiler)(/spoiler) only instead of parenthesis use brackets.

Also, there is one flaw in your argument. Shepard has Legion on his side, and could possibly get the Geth to help him research it. Since Legion himself said the Geth would be willing to fight against the Reapers. And logically you would want any advantage on your enemy that you can get, and since robots tend to think logically (Legion and EDI have helped further this argument through many discussions with them) Shepard could potentially get the Geth to help research the base.

Plus you have EDI and VI's that could be put onto the base to speed up research, keeping organics away. And you can't brainwash robots.

That way organics don't get corrupted, and we get research.

There's a flaw in your argument. Cerberus is the only organization that can copy the IFF and reach the base to begin with. By the time the Alliance or council could also produce them (asumming you give the original to them) Cerberus would have the area completely secured and keep everyone else out.

I don't remember anything about them copying the IFF. I know they found it, but after that all the origional people on the Reaper corpse was, well turned into Husks.

The only one that was able to make any sense of the thing was EDI.

Remember the thing you get before opening the latch to the Reaper Core? That thing came with a virus. That is what I meant. A 10+ thousand year old virus that EDI could not detect.