Interesting concept arts revealing earlier drafts of ME3 plot

That actually explains quite a bit. For example why Cerberus is on Sur'Kesh to sabotage the rescue of Eve and the genophage cure. This is probably a remnant of the times when Cerberus were still meant to be just reaper goons the entire game. Because it only makes sense if they are really working for th reapers. However, in the final game, TIM still works against the reapers right up until the very end, when he completely looses it, so the Sur'Kesh raid really isn't in his best interest. Also, during the mission, Shepard says at some point "They are indoctrinated", clearly meaning under Reaper control, though in the final plot, at that point, they should be under TIM's control as we discovered on Mars.

So yea, the remnants of this old idea can still be seen sometimes in the game and cause some weird situations there. Good find.

They really scrambled the plot a couple of times in ME3 and unfortunately it kinda shows.


As for the second picture, not sure how to interpret it. Was the Spectre office meant to overlook the Presidium maybe? I am sure that was scrapped for performance/system resource reasons. If they really wanted to simulate a view of the presidium in an office space right next to the presidium, that would have been seriously weird and disorienting for players. Glad they didn't do it, it would have given me a headache.

TIM is working for the Reapers though. Just unintentionally must like all indoctrinated people.  He is chasing a fantasy that causes his own resources to be diverted away from fighting the Reapers. He opens up new battle grounds causing all the other races to have to waste resources fighting him. He causes strive and fear to grow in galaxy already full of strife and fear. It is Saren all over again. The only difference is Saren thought if you proved yourself useful you would be spared. TIM thinks he would some how be able to control them.

Agreed Link.
Saren was indoctrinated but the way it worked is that he still thought he was doing the right thing for himself (and organics in general). Indoctrination allowed him to deceive himself into thinking that making the organics slaves of the reapers was the only way to save them. That way, he ended up working with and for the reapers. That made sense.

With TIM, it's actually supposed to be similar. Indoctrination (and TIM's innate propensity to control things) makes him believe that the best solution to "solve the reaper problem" is to try and control them. To that end, he wants to research how to control the reapers, he wants to find a way to take over the crucible and he may want to delay its construction (so that Hackett, Shepard and company can't use it to destroy the reapers before he can take over.

However, unlike Saren, even indoctrinated TIM thinks he still works against the reapers (though of course, in reality he is mostly disrupting everyone else's efforts to defeat them, therefore working for them in a twisted way).

A lot of what TIM does in ME3 meshes with that idea. For example, the raid on Mars, the attempted Citadel coup, having labs with reaper tech, the assault on Grissom Academy, etc.

This is all well and good and I think it's actually a nice way to make TIM both an evil but also a somewhat tragic figure.

However, the Cerberus raid on Sur'Kesh is one of a few examples in the game where TIM's actions don't really mesh with his indoctrination driven motives. Why would TIM want to commit resources to prevent the Krogan/Turian alliance? It doesn't help him in his research, it doesn't get him closer to the crucible, it doesn't even delay it, as the purpose of this alliance was to have the Turians available for an eventual attack against the reapers once it was ready, not to safeguard the construction site or help with the construction in a significant way.

The only thing the Sur'Kesh raid does is help the reapers directly, who are rolling over the galaxy as it is. TIM should have a vested interest in this alliance actually working out since it would delay the reapers, who are threatening to take over the galaxy before Cerberus can ever finish their control research.

That's why I think Sur'Kesh is a remnant of the early plot outline when Cerberus was supposed to straight up work with and for the reapers like Saren did back in ME1. Then they must have changed the idea of TIM's motives but they probably ran out of time and couldn't change that mission any more. At least that's my take on it. There are a few other inconsistencies in the game that fit with this sort of plot change as well.

Do you really think TIM went there himself? The impression ME2 gave me was that TIM was willing to interfere with Reaper tech but was also fully aware of its danger and so his whole organization was built to make doing this possible but with him, the master being isolated from the process itself, thus the lonely office looking out into the void of space and a big burning sun.

Although, tangent here, but the sun he's looking at actually had a purpose. It is stated in one of the novels that it is a "dying sun" so it was meant as foreshadowing of the dark energy plotline, and that also reveals that TIM's true underlying motives in his ME2 version was that beyond just the Reapers there was this dark energy issue that only someone as radically forward thinking and non-commune as Cerberus were looking out for.

I tend to concur here. TIM's ego was far too big for him to believe he could ever be indoctrinated. Alternately, I still do believe he was influenced by Reaper tech long before the events of ME1. I think that was in a comic or something (I read about it on the ME wiki). It didn't have to fully indoctrinate him so much as make him stupid enough to continuously seek it out.

The other thing, that people are ignoring, is that TIM isn't even remotely unique in this sort of thing happening. Vendetta specifically says that the same thing happened in the prior cycle: some organization thought it was doing good and fighting the Reapers but was meanwhile sabotaging everyone and everything around him. What I would say about TIM is that he really did have a strong will. That's why, when confronted with the evidence, he eventually chose to shoot himself rather than continue to serve the Reaper's will. The caveat is a strong enough Paragon or Renegade score, but I guess that's what provides the "evidence".

In some sense, if someone other than TIM had been running a Cerberus-like organization, it's entirely possible that person would never have had the ability to overcome the Reapers for just those few moments required to kill himself. I'm not saying he's a hero, because I still think he's a sadistic bastard who would gladly sacrifice millions for the cause, but he's got some willpower.

TIM having such a huge army in ME3 that attacks everywhere in the galaxy certainly makes more sense to me if they're actually Reaper puppets with Reaper resources. Or the sheer scale of all his undertakings, turning people into husks, controlling Reapers... and the Reapers not seeming to care about it. I know you can somehow explain this all within ME3's eventual plot, but it just seems more plausible that way.

Bumping into TIM in some sort of hidden control room close to the Catalyst always felt unlikely too, makes a little more sense to me if he's the Catalyst's servant already.

Pretty sure Andromeda suffered the same effect. I remember hearing how they made them switch game engines like 3/4th way though development. Forcing them to start almost over from scratch. And is why a lot of the graphical issues existed in it.  If it is true then BioWare keeps getting the shit end of the stick by EA.

Interesting to see some of the concepts they were kicking around. I loved ME 3 but I always wondered what kind of possibilities there would have been if they had more time and resources.

I seem to remember someone posting videos of ME:A in an early development that looked more like ME 3 then what it ultimately ended up as. All while missing many of the conversation issues that so disrupted the launch and lead to many memes being created around the dead eye robot faces that happened.

Javik is part of core game play. He was just relegated to day 1 dlc.  His appearance on Thessia rather drastically changes how it plays out. That is more then any other DLC character. He also has more character interaction on the Normandy then either DLC characters in ME 2.  Most likely at the demand of EA.


To be fair ME 3 had to do the work for 2 whole games.  The total contribution to the trilogy story line ME 2 gives could be summed up in  a paragraph.  So when there are things like the citadel coup that aren't explained extremely clearly I give it a bit of a pass.  How ever ME 1 was and still is held as a gold standard in terms of plot and interaction if not game play.  So them copying stuff from ME 1 is sort of understandable. That is how you sell games by repeating what people know and like already.

What is amusing to me in regards to repeating elements from ME 1 to ME 3 is that players are perfectly willing to accept them without much bad talk but when they happen in ME 3 suddenly it is really bad.  You know Prothean VI appearing suddenly with no warning that explains like 90% of the end game plot in ME 1 is acceptable. when it happens in ME 3 the responds is more "what kind of shitty writing is this?"

Mac had a large issue on how to resolve the plot, all the existing plot lines that have yet to be resolved and how could they do it while giving players the ability to choose their ending rather then force a single ending that everyone would have to follow.  Building up the Reapers to god like beings that are only stopped thanks to sheer deus ex machina there was never going to be a satisfying way to beat them. 

You complain about stuff in the game being dumbed down but I don't see that. Some of the social commentary stuff might be dumbed down but people can barely grasp that basic stuff in the real world. So reducing that to the lowest common denominator is expected. But ironically enough I see people dumbing down content that was fairly complex in the game. Synthteic and Organic life interaction is a complex issues as shown in game. But if I had a dollar for everyone who declared "but you can make peace with Geth that means there is no problem" I could put a down payment on a new car.

But I'm not saying there isn't, for christs sakes. However, I'm saying that it proves it no more false than the Catalyst stating it as an inevitability in the first place when that is a blanket statement, and even his incident which is a major one, I get it, does not prove it will always happen and that organic creations will always lead to a genocidal conflict and so for the ARGUMENT, the logic the plot hinges on, it DOES prove it false, and unless the Catalyst or the narrative in general can insinuate a better reasoning then the plot is toast and the premise remains broken with the ending. So, it's an inauthentic, broken part of the narrative, right when it's supposed to explain everything and wrap up, great job BioWare.

Think about it, man. The ending subverts the entire premise of the series with an expository twist that hinges on an argument that is false, and any evidence or counterevidence we have neither proves it more right or more false, it only presents posibilities that can make you go "Maybe? Who knows?", so the entire conflict of the series is turned on its head with no tangible reasoning and that's how it gets resolved. In what way is that a good outcome of a story?