The Illusive Man was NOT indoctrinated by the Arca Monolith artifact!

 *This is branching off of a reply/conversation in the Unpopular Opinions thread.

Conventional wisdom among fans is that the Illusive Man (henceforth "TIM") was indoctrinated many years ago by the artifact he was "touched" by at the Arca Monolith. It is also widely held that his eyes are proof of his indoctrination. I argue that the wisdom is actually a common misconception.

Note that I, for a long time, was under this impression myself. So while I may enjoy acting like the superior mind above all you rabble, the truth is not as flattering as I'd like to believe.


Here is my case....


Reapers can only hold onto their enthralled agents for so long before they lose their minds. So the question now becomes, for how long can they hold them?

We have our answer in the Codex:


The events of Mass Effect: Evolution take place in 2157.
The events of Mass Effect 3 begin taking place in 2186 -- nearly 30 years later.

The Codex states that slow indoctrination can allow the thrall to last for months-to-years. That is not really similar to saying that the thrall can last for almost three decades!! You could argue technicalities and say that, strictly speaking, "decades" does not contradict "years," but that is a suspect defense.

How does indoctrination work, anyway?


So it fills your head up with various forms of radiation, the like of which has various adverse effects in real life. Also, if you remember the Cerberus team on the Derelict Reaper, they were all complaining of various ailments while indoctrination was setting in. Again, it's kind of questionable to argue that TIM was dealing with all sorts of mind-altering forces inside his head, even if one wants to claim that the true control was simply lying dormant.

And then comes perhaps the biggest problem with this theory.

Simply put, sense....

>>> Between the founding of Cerberus and the end of Mass Effect 2, TIM's actions do far, far more harm to the Reapers/their plans than good!!

After the Collectors successfully kill Shepard, they are then able to almost recover his body from mercenaries. This is a huge victory in the making for the Reapers, and then TIM comes and ruins everything with help from Liara. Liara steals back Shepard's body, and TIM is able to resurrect him/her. Not only does it not make sense for them to have their minion handle Shepard's body unnecessarily (and, given Liara's involvement, without secrecy), but the Reapers are more likely to be able to pull off this miraculous experiment (the like of which has not been accomplished by anyone in their cycle) than some unofficial human paramilitary group.

The idea that the Reapers' control of TIM's mind was laying dormant also falls apart here because the Reapers had many chances to clearly see the enemy foiling their plans: Cerberus, whose leader they'd supposedly be in control of. So if they were not aware of TIM's actions before, they'd have seen it eventually, at which point they would inexplicably be standing by while their thrall ruins everything they're doing.

Then, after taking away the single most prized possession from the Reapers and bringing back one of the best Reaper hunters in the galaxy, TIM proceeds to: find a key to neutralizing one of their best weapons (seeker-swarms), venture into the Omega-4 system and wipe out an entire proxy army of the Reapers and the prototype for what likely would have been its crown jewel of our cycle: a Reaper capital-ship from human subjects.

To which Harbinger angrily rants at Shepard on the way out of their 'Base.

There is no way to justify TIM's actions during and just before ME2 if we are to believe that he was an indoctrinated agent. Sorry, but that amount of damage done to the Reapers' plans here far outweighs anything that they could have reasonably expected from TIM later. No, these were not merely some acceptable losses for them as they waited to use TIM for his "true" purpose.

This also plays to a theory of a mental-battle within TIM's mind where he's partly helping Shepard on his freewill but partly sabotaging him due to being slow indoctrinated. Apart from the issue detailed above that this theory does not dispel, I also address this theory a few times below.


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Cerberus itself is an organization dedicated largely to fighting the Reapers. TIM's manifesto for Cerberus is a subtle acknowledgement of the Reaper menace, warning of distant alien threats in the darkest corners of the galaxy that threaten humanity's very existence. Again, TIM's brief interaction with the Arca Monolith artifact showed him visions of the imminent Reaper invasion. It is probable that this vision galvanized him into taking action. A few later quotes from TIM seem to support this. In the intro to ME2, TIM refers to Shepard's discovery of the Reaper threat to be "the truth."

As well, it is notable that the Reaper threat is treated as common knowledge among all Cerberus personnel we meet, even while most other groups doubt or deny it.

Often fans interpret this line as meaning that Cerberus is anti-alien. I will not even try to argue that TIM is not racist, but whether he is or not is irrelevant. While I certainly believe that vigilance against rival species like the turians is no small part of Cerberus's purpose, I do not believe they are what TIM was referring to in his manifesto. They are not an existential threat in the same vein as the Reapers.

Anyway, all I really wanted to get at here was that Cerberus was founded in large part to fighting the Reapers. TIM himself pointedly tells Shepard that he has been fighting them longer than Shepard (who'd likely have believed himself/herself to have been the first to uncover the Reaper threat) can imagine. Shepard himself/herself even seems to understand Cerberus's value, saying (in an optional Paragon line) that Cerberus was supposed to be "humanity's shield" (and not it's dagger in the back).


So when does TIM fall (IMO)?

I would argue TIM did not become a Reaper pawn until after the Sanctuary data returned, at which point he judged that he could safely implant himself with Reaper-tech (because what Cerberus found gave them the ability to control them). This, of course, was a fatal miscalculation that only resulted in TIM becoming indoctrinated.

This leads into the next point, Shepard's showdown with TIM. In the end, TIM was still not beyond the point of doubting the Reapers. I believe this is only possible because he was not indoctrinated for awfully long. Compare this to Dr. Kenson, whom is indoctrinated when we meet her in Arrival, and any pleas to make her think better of helping them are to no avail -- she's too far-gone. Similarly, the Reapers talked Paul Grayson (Cerberus Reaper-indoc'd test subject) out of killing himself in the ME novels -- again, too far-gone. TIM, however, was not too far-gone to redeem himself.

If he were truly under such perfect/careful indoctrination and had been for so many years, I should doubt he'd have been able to be talked into killing himself as he did.

Other Red Herrings

-- TIM: "I've been fighting (the Reapers) longer than you can imagine!"

A lot of fans interpret this as TIM reflect on a private, personal battle with indoctrination. I will admit (again, grudgingly) that I may have once thought this, too, so I understand that it's easy to take it this way. However, this quote can be taken at its face value and arguably makes more sense that way. TIM saw what was coming when he touched the artifact, as I explained in detail above.

-- Maya Brooks: "He is indoctrinated."

Some who've disputed my position used this as an "A-ha!" counter-argument. It doesn't work for me, though, considering lots of things that were thought to be true of TIM and Cerberus in ME3 turned out to be false or only partly true. I would chalk this up as another person who got TIM wrong (whom, Shepard admits in the end, was not wrong to believe that control of the Reapers was an option to stop them), and just another one of many red-herrings in ME3 about TIM/Cerberus to keep the player from figuring them out too much. After all, what would be the point of all the mystery behind the writer's favorite clandestine black-ops group if they gave you all the information like it was no secret?

-- Signs of early implantation

In the beginning of ME3, we see TIM on the other side of the hologram with black markings on his face. Later, he tells an implanted Kai Leng that the cybernetics he was outfitted with take time to get used to. Was it Reaper-tech? Sure it's possible, but given the (very limited) information we have, not a strictly logical conclusion to make.

-- Reckless treatment in ME2

Another fan talking-point is that TIM often throws Shepard into near-fatal danger in ME2, as though symbolizing some internal battle in TIM's mind where he was somewhat fighting the Reapers but also at times losing. The likelier explanation is that TIM did not trust Shepard with more information, at risk of compromising the mission parameters as TIM had carefully set them (that is, TIM wanted the job done a certain way and did not want Shepard to change that).

Other Evidences

Novels

The Mass Effect novels use 3rd-person omnipresent narration, and we are privy to the thoughts of many characters as a result. One such character is Paul Grayson, who was indoctrinated. The book explicitly details his indoctrinated state by making us aware of the whispers in his head. The Illusive Man, by contrast, is not depicted as being compromised mentally in any similar fashion.

One might respond by saying that the authors did not want to give away his indoctrination to the readers, but this stands in contrast to the claim that the ME:E comic he was in served to clearly tell the fanbase that TIM has long been indoctrinated.

Object Rho

Commander Shepard gets a very similar experience to what TIM did back at the Arca Monolith. He is "touched" by a Reaper artifact that shows him visions of what's to come. He is then rendered unconscious and remains within the facility for two days or so before escaping. He is not indoctrinated from the experience. Indoctrination requires sustained exposure for close to a week to set in.

On that note, the Illusive Man also was not exposed to the artifact for the continuous amount of time required for indoctrination to set in.

Control/Sanctuary

A lot of fans may see the death toll or experiments of Sanctuary and conclude that this is an indoctrinated TIM doing the Reapers' work for them. On the surface, it may certainly appear that way. However, when you consider the very real break-though made there towards controlling (and, in turn, stopping) the Reapers, the civilian casualties are no longer a big deal -- not for the Reapers (for whom Sanctuary is less than a drop-in-the-bucket as far as victims go).

The mere possibility that TIM & Co had nearly cracked the code on controlling the Reapers was so threatening to the Reapers that they diverted forces to the colony in an effort to stop it.

Again, the idea TIM was indoctrinated here becomes silly. One could argue, again, that Sanctuary was doing the Reapers' work for them while chasing some fool's errand. It did not, however, turn out to be a fool's errand in the end, but a viable possibility to stop the Reapers. That being the case, it does not make sense that they would urge TIM to investigate a vulnerability of theirs, especially for returns that were meager in the big scheme of things (again, refugees on some far-off colony being huskified is not some big prize for the Reapers enough to justify potentially giving away their very downfall).

How did they find Sanctuary, then, if not through TIM's mind. Henry Lawson indicates that the Reaper signals from their facility tipped them off. I find this explanation plausible enough.

And, once again, Shepard admits in the end that his doubts about TIM's plan was not as far-fetched/unattainable as Shepard may have initially dismissed it as -- bothersome though this line may be to opponents of the Control ending. To that end (opponents), a few fans subscribe to IT, generally believing that the Catalyst/Reapers see Control as an acceptable outcome superior to Destroy though maybe not quite as desirable as Synthesis. I find that to be nonsense. In the EC, the Catalyst clearly states that he and the Reaper collective have no desire to bend to your will.

And if you dismiss the Catalyst as untrustworthy (as many fans do), well then there is just the plain rational argument to be made. Nobody likes to relinquish power to others, especially not those who are used to holding huge amounts of it. As Zaeed says about despots: "Start showing them that you're in charge and they're not, and they start whining like little girls."

Character

Simply put, the desire to take control of the Reapers is just who TIM is. He is a maverick, always has been. When told things are impossible, he goes and does them anyway, like bringing Shepard back from the grave.

It's also notable that TIM never says, in ME2, that the goal is to destroy the Reapers, just to stop them.

Some claim that the only people shown to want control of the Reapers have turned out to be indoctrinated, not normal people. I have one possible example that disproves this, though it is a regrettable one: Miranda's father. Yes, the man is an awful, evil man, but there is nothing to indicate he is indoctrinated. If anything, his work at Sanctuary would not have been possible if he was, because (1) his mental state would have been too weak, and (2) again, the Reapers would have known about project through him and nipped it in the bud sooner. Also, Shepard can let Mr. Lawson walk free if Miranda is not alive to kill him. Shepard can do a lot of stupid things, and this may be another one of the many, but I will be charitable and imagine that this cycle's expert on the Reaper threat did not just let an indoctrinated agent walk without mere question after having been snakebitten in the past for doing so.

The Eyes Have It

Watch TIM's (paragon/suicide) death scene very carefully. You will notice that, shortly after falling dead, the lights in TIM's Reaper implants power down...

... However, the blue eyes from his contact with the Arca Monolith artifact (what many fans point to as evidence of indoctrination) remain lit.

And there you have it.