Cerberus Issues

In Mass Effect 1 Cerberus is a total unknown. To even discover their name involves a quest and nobody has heard of them. At the very end of their quest line we learn that Cerberus was an Alliance Black Ops group which went rogue months before the game began. In the mean time we stumble through the aftermath of several unethical experiments they have been conducting or have conducted. Why they went rogue is not stated.

What they believe in, if anything, is not stated. We are told a specific goal of their experiments is to create some kind of super soldier, but nothing else. No ideological motivation is offered. We speak to only one member of Cerberus and then only briefly and don't get the opportunity to question him about anything; merely to talk down a former victim threatening his life. It is hinted that Cerberus is lead by some "General" but nothing else comes out. We can observe that Cerberus is very secretive but anything else is a mystery.

Then the second novel, a prequel to ME2, is released. It reveals that Cerberus is lead by the Illusive Man who is a human nationalist or possibly a supremacist. We learn that Cerberus is dedicated to advancing human interests at any cost under the Illusive Man's direction. His beliefs and motives and justifications are articulated to the reader. Notably, the secondary protagonist of the novel is a Cerberus operative participating in questionable research and having a moral conflict over it, ultimately deciding to defect from Cerberus. However, it should be noted that the novel never brings up Cerberus being lead by a General, nor any of the experiments in ME1, nor any connection what-so-ever to the Alliance. The beginning of a retcon.

ME2 comes out and Cerberus is revealed to be a large and well funded organization. They are recognized and infamous all over the galaxy. All secrecy seems to be thrown to the wind as they walk around with their emblems on display and are identified on sight by everyone they meet. Keep in mind, in ME1 it was a task to even discover that Cerberus exists and it was apparent by their use of bureaucratic stonewalling from within the Alliance and luring of Alliance marines into a Thresher Maw nest, as well as their construction of cobbled together space stations with no identifying marks, that they are a stealthy and secretive organization.

 We are given... vague explanations for the experiments in ME1 but dialog doesn't really let us question Miranda about any of this and her answers don't really make any sense or have any bearing on the actual events we witnessed. Nothing about a super soldier is brought up and once again, nothing about Cerberus being Black Ops is brought up. We can however talk to Miranda about her ideology and motivations, as well as Jacob and Kelly Chambers, and their beliefs are well articulated. We are told Cerberus has wealthy private donors who fund them. Lore indicates they in fact do operate in secret though the above contradiction, that being that they wear their emblem out in the open and everyone knows them by sight, is still present. This bad writing. We also learn that Cerberus was formed decades ago with the release of a manifesto on the extra-net and was exposed to the public a few years later after they committed several terrorist attacks. The retcon continues.

Now the third novel comes out, a sequel to ME2 and a prequel to ME3. In this novel TIM is one of the main characters and we get to see his internal thoughts and motivations. He's concerned about the Reapers and that the galaxy is not prepared for them and wants to do whatever he can to stop them. When Cerberus is hit hard in an attack by the turians he contemplates that his organization is a small one and cannot afford such losses. While he feels he can rebuild, he speculates it will take him a decade or more to do so. Once again, there is no mention of Cerberus ever being an Alliance Black Ops group. TIM risks his life at one point attempting to prevent a Reaper experiment from escaping captivity, eschewing his own escape in the process. This kind of important for his character.

Now ME3 comes out. Cerberus is now fighting against everyone in the galaxy while trying to do their own thing with the Reapers. TIM says something about controlling them. He has Reaper tech implanted in his body and his operatives on a whim despite TIM actually being very cautious in the previous tie-in novel. Overnight, just a few months after those events, his organization is large enough to wage a galaxy-wide war against the rest of organic civilization. They are armies and fleets and even Dreadnaughts. They're a real galactic power now. This makes no sense. Their motivations make no sense. We are told TIM is indoctrinated, yet the Reapers actually attack Cerberus at one point anyway. Udina and TIM stage a coup on the Citadel, but the reasoning behind this too is never elaborated upon and its nonsensical nature is even lampshaded by the codex.

Now all that is just a summary of how Cerberus is used in the plot. It's inconsistent or at least very poorly explained. In ME2, it is clear the plot wants us to at least see Cerberus is a grey manner. Are they good or bad or something in between? Yet this is communicated poorly. First, TIM manipulates us on the Collector Ship for no clearly explained reason. He spent a fortune to bring us back and build us a new ship, so why risk us like this? We are given a vague answer and rather than believe TIM is just being vague I am inclined to believe Mac Walters just didn't know how to explain TIM's actions here. It's style over substance. He wants TIM to be someone we are never sure if we can trust or not. Ideally, you would do this by still explaining his actions in a sensible and logical way, while communicating to us his ruthlessness. This shifts us firmly into the "TIM is bad" camp. There is no moral grayness there.

A further problem, is that ME2 continually brings up unethical and also disastrous Cerberus operations and experiments. Project Lazarus is a huge space station but the crew is slaughtered and the station destroyed. Similar events take place on the Derelict Reaper and in that case we are never given any reason why Cerberus scientists fell for indoctrination despite knowing about it beforehand and drone technology now being VERY PROMINENT in this setting. This just makes Cerberus look incompetent. Then there is Overlord where again we see a massive base and hundreds of personnel slaughtered by reactivated geth. Why did these geth have weapons? Now the motivations for this experiment are sensible enough, if of questionable ethics, and imagery is very blunt, but we are still ultimately presented with a brutal experiment conducted in an incompetent manner. Incompetency is not sympathetic and considering we already know Cerberus is ruthless and unethical, in human terms, we need to see something positive about them if we are ever going to be unsure of whether to hate them or not. As it stands, the only thing going for them in ME2 is that they will help us when no one else will. This is a poor way to develop your "morally gray faction". They needed to be useful and competent while also being unethical to properly imbue us with mixed feelings about them. Yet all the same, attempts are made. When we investigate Jack's backstory we uncover horrific experiments on children, but here is the thing: it is explicitly stated that TIM knew nothing about the experiments and was being lied too. It is stated that the perpetrators fear what he'll do if he does find out and, when that does come pass, it is implied TIM has the guilty parties executed (those few who survived). So what are we supposed to take form this? Are there lines even TIM won't cross or not? Dr. Archer in Overlord seems to fear being killed just for not getting a positive result in his own experiments and we are presented with this as justification for why he went to such extreme lengths. Yet, we witness nothing like this from TIM and what is done to David is at least as bad as what was done to many of those children. So just what are we supposed to think here? We don't get to talk to TIM or Miranda about this. That is very questionable writing. Hell, something else to consider is that going by ME1 canon, the experiments on Jack would have been conducted under ALLIANCE supervision. THAT would introduce some moral grayness. Such experiments would also be in line with the experiments performed on Kaidan and in-line with his suspicions that the Alliance deliberately exposed humans to element zero. Mind you, this is the same Alliance that will use criminal warlords as faux allies only to assassinate them when they aren't useful. The same Alliance that armed automated nuke-probes and hid their existence form the Council out of fear of sanctions. Grayness. Only, this was retconned in ME2. So nevermind.

Here is another problem though. All this talk about Cerberus being incompetent is something even the casual playerbase picked up on. It was large reason why many players choose to destroy the Collector Base at the end of ME2 and used by many others to justify Cerberus' flimsy actions in ME3. This presents a pretty big narrative and world building issue though: if Cerberus is so incompetent, then how do they have so much support? How have they continued to survive being hunted by their enemies? An organization with Cerberus track-record in ME2 should not be able to stay hidden or gain financial support from anybody. Such money would be wasted on Cerberus and have the risk of inviting culpability in their unethical experiments and criminal actions when these operations go tits up and hundreds of people die and multi-million dollar space stations and space ports and research labs are turned into slag. This makes no sense.

So by now most players don't see Cerberus as morally grey but just as incompetent, bumbling idiots. Not only does this not make sense considering how Cerberus' resources are justified in the story, but it is a very questionable design choice for this narrative. Nobody cares much for an evil and bumbling villain. Cerberus is not intimidating if they are clumsy idiots and they are not interesting if they are one-dimensional villains. You COULD have bumbling villains who at least have sympathetic motivations, though that would be hard. The better thing would be competent villains with motivations that are broadly appealing, but come at a big moral cost that most people aren't willing to pay. This would make for a better story since considering the prominent role Cerberus has in the story, they NEED to be competent in terms of narrative to justify their acquisition of so many vast resources.

Do you see what I'm getting at here? Does this make sense?

Let's take another look at Cerberus in ME3. TIM states his objective is to control the Reapers rather than destroy them. Okay, fair enough. I believe that is a reasonable thing for his character to want to do. However how he goes about it makes no sense whether he is indoctrinated or not. If TIM wants to control the Reapers then he needs the Crucible and in the mean time he needs the galaxy mounting active resistance against the Reapers to minimize the destruction being wrought upon humanity. The best way to go about this then is for TIM to continue working alongside Shepard, working subtly to influence Shepard's choices in alliances and such, and then only spring his trap at the very end when the Crucible is finished or nearly finished. Now TIM has his chance to control the Reapers but if that fails the galaxy is still united against the invaders. Plan B in case TIM fails and if TIM succeeds then even if the united galaxy can defeat the Reapers he controls, he can still push forward his agenda by saving even one Reaper for study and utilization.

BUT TIM IS INDOCTRINATED!
Yes, and I went over why this makes no sense since the Reapers attack Cerberus anyway. It is also predicated on TIM's character being assassinated to make him a reckless idiot rather than a cautious manipulator and strategist. Ultimately though, it is just NOT. INTERESTING. We already had an indoctrinated villain in Saren but he was actually done well. His over all actions and abilities made sense and were justified in the plot and his motivations were sensible and even sympathetic. He thought resistance was futile and would lead to total extinction, so he deceived himself into submitting to the Reapers out of the vain hope that they would spare SOME organics for being useful tools. It's kind of tragic.

What does TIM want for humanity? His motivations are too vague and poorly explained in ME3 if they are explained at all. "Control the Reapers" and "Uplift Humanity" are given as reasons but no real concrete ideas are communicated. What does controlling the Reapers MEAN for humanity or the rest of the galaxy if TIM gets his way? Why did he come to this conclusion? In the third novel TIM only studied Reaper tech in the hopes it would enable him to REVERSE indoctrination in people or block it. He doesn't just say this, he thinks it to himself.

So what are TIM's motivations anyway? Why does he believe what he does? I myself could give you a pretty lengthy account of why a human-centric group like Cerberus is in principal a very good thing for humanity. I could give lots of examples of how dangerous and hostile the galaxy is, how dangerous and hostile the Council, turians, salarians, batarians, and geth, all are. How damaging the Migrant Fleet could be or how scary the Spectres are. It's not hard to justify but... the game narrative never does this. All the lore is there to justify TIM and his Cerberus group, but that lore is not utilized. TIM is a human nationalist because he just is and he conducts unethical research because he can even though the fruits of such are... questionable at best.

Now, like I said, if you want Cerberus to be one-note villains that's fine, but write them well. There were previously no cartoon villains in Mass Effect. Elanos Haliat was given appropriate motivation for his actions: he hated humans and/or Shepard for thwarting his attack on Elysium and thus destroying his reputation as a pirate. Dr Maleon was a sociopath conducting pure research no matter the 'human' cost, preying upon desperate people. A very down to Earth villain in many respects. Lord Darius was a criminal warlord used by the Alliance to pacify an unruly region of space who then rebelled when the Alliance turned its back on him once he was no longer useful, whom we were then sent to murder in violation of the law. That's not cartoon stuff; that is nuanced. Balak is an angry man retaliating against a people he feels are responsible for the poor conditions of his own, even going so far as to shift the blame for his actions onto his own victims. That is nuanced.

TIM never comes across as a cartoon. He comes across as rational and ruthless, but we are mostly just talking style and presentation here in the games. One novel, in which he is a centric character, does communicate to us the honesty in his motivations; he IS dedicated to humanity. However the backstory is glossed over "he was a normal man with a normal job".

So whatever you think Cerberus is or should be, I think I have demonstrated here that they are not well written or utilized by the plot. Their backstory changes, their capabilities keep changing, and their role in ME3 is not logically consistent with anything else we've been told about them. That is why I call them plot clay.

So even if your assertion that Cerberus was used in the ME trilogy exactly as planned, that execution was still deeply flawed.

(moved to my pastebin since I wrote it)