The incompetence of the Alliance and Council.

Him and Hackett, unless you consider Hackett sending Liara to Mars was some kind of significant action. There was zero evidence that Protheans were capable of defeating the Reapers, much less that such a weapon happened to be on Mars and, somewhere in the six months between ME2 and ME3, they figured out it was the only thing that could defeat the Reapers. The MET had an atrocious timeline, from humanities 26 years to Council-hood and the time between Arrival and ME3. The only timeline that made sense was the two years to fix Shepard.

Basically, the only people who 100% believed Shepard, did nothing to make a change.  Two admirals knew the score but were unable to make any kind of difference. Plus, as we learn in Citadel DLC, the Council knew the truth all along.

As I said, the Alliance, or rather, the leadership of the Alliance have the I don't care attitude. They became the keystone cops after the SR1 was destroyed to the time the reapers showed up on earth. 

A couple/few issues I have with Hackett in ME3. His failure to inform Shepard that he/she might run into Cerberus on Mars, but chose to tell Shepard the reapers couldn't be beaten conventionally something that means nothing at that time. After the dreadnought mission he will say we only lost earth a few weeks ago. He's already has earth dead to rights. That's not very good talk coming from a high ranking officer like him. Talk like that brings down morale. It's good that Shepard can reply, in a firm voice, we haven't lost earth yet. And finally just before Cronos, Shepard asks what happens if Cerberus doesn't have what they need. Hackett will replay with then we head to earth and take our chances. That's not a plan, that's someone who doesn't know what he's doing. If anything there should be a plan b in place just in case maybe even a plan c. He also said earlier in the game they wouldn't last in a straight up fight. Turns out that's what happened when the fleets headed to earth.

Hackett sending t'soni to Mars wasn't a bad move though I would have that happen after the SR1 was destroyed. I doubt she would have said no given at the time she was all about studying prothean stuff. 

With the council, it would have been a nice addon if the player learns, through Hackett, the Alliance and council secretly were restoring Ilos just in case the reapers succeeded. X number of people are put in stasis with a copy of the plans of the crucible to be built in the next cycle.

I believe the protheans would have succeeded in destroying the reapers had it not been for the indoctrinated group wanting to control the reapers. The other thing is a lack of communication between each other. Javik mentions that in the game. No one knew what other protheans were doing. This cycle had comms without much issues. Add that during the prothean cycle, they likely would have destroyed the reapers.

The Alliance and the Council decided to throw Shepard to the flames as much as Cerberus.

In the start of the game Anderson asks to meet with you but surprise, he keeps the information about the Virmire Survivor classified. You can get your Spectre status back thanks to the Council you chose to save but can't tell the Virmire Survivor on Horizon that they trusted you enough for that or better yet: Anderson decided to keep the fact that the Council Shepard saved reinstated him to Spectre status and clearly only communicated with Williams (LI in my much later).

If you go to Anderson again and asks him about the fact that Williams was on Horizon he explains that she was looking into reports that Cerberus was attacking the colonies and when you press him calling him out he states that that was before they knew of Shepard and sorry. I suspect that after Williams calmed down and delivered her report she wrote that apology letter to Shepard but then nothing until ME3 because Bioware needed to use the VS as a plot device to introduce new players to his Cerberus connections and it would have been better had Shepard croosed paths with the VS in ME2.

Heck, with the Shadow Broker Resources we could have established communications with them and start a mending proces if we choose so but, we got what we got.

Translation: the Alliance used A/K as much as a bait as Cerberus did but they were the good guys, who did Cerberus like experiments (the creation of the Collector Stasis shown in Paragon Lost) and let's not count the BS of the Asari Commandos who rather than save the Wreath Yakshi kept them in the dark about the whole Reaper invasion and then went to blow them up or the STG and their conrinued meddling in uplifting other races or the Steel Birds who executed multiple civilians at Shanxi (Illusive Man origin comic) and got a hold of a Reaper device, I feel a bit sympathy for Cerberus because even with all their stained mantra at least they wear their stains with pride unlike the other organizations who keep their secrets dead or buried.


I think we could have met the VS during the time Shepard goes to do his mission while the Normandy had the Reaper IFF being installed and they decide to give the Alliance and the Council a ton of collected Intel (like the Collectors being Protheans and the location of a weapon which disabled a Reaper) and then mid discorse EDI pings us and tells us what happened to the crew which leads to multiple possibilities to how we could say our goodbyes.
After the Collectors Base mission we decide to go check that cannon ourselves and we locate the VS also investigating the place and depending how we handled the Base we could get more than a talk. Overlord could also influence on the meeting, we run into some Cerberus personal which were told to either welcome Shepard or be wary of us (the Base status) but we get the opportunity to contract them using Speech Checks and we run into them again in ME3.

It's not even that they waited 6 months but when they finally decided to ask Shepard and Williams was because they realized that they couldn't stop the Reapers on their own, the Alliance really was scared at the start of ME3 and they seemed to think they had a better chance than most: 

Someone recovered Shepard's body and it didn't make its way back to the Alliance. When Shepard popped up the Alliance already knew. They showed no surprise.

Yep. Every one of them. Hackett seemed to be the only one not stupid enough to make use of Shepard even while with Cerberus. He probably didn't have enough influence to sway things.

Hackett does, he contacted Shepard to look into the mess his friend got herself into with a group of Deep Cover Operatives (Black Ops like Cerberus) that got id---- indoctrinated and, if you don't do Arrival Hackett sends members of the Special Forces (which die and cause the Bahak Relay and do a minus in your WA).
By having Shepard do the mission the entire Alliance could deny involvement so while Hackett kept all Alliance Forces from contacting Shepard, even the groups who wanted to have him face five to six months of interrogation for his involvement with Cerberus, and he outright denied them. He is the Fleet Admiral of one of the biggest Fleets and the one with a lot of pull in the SA.

Read the Shadow Broker Terminals that show you how alone Shepard was in ME2 and then in ME3, he kept the rest of the Alliance from contacting Shepard but after its declared on Horizon that Cerberus wasn't behind the abductions he contacts us to ask for a Black Ops (and he didn't wanted anymore witnesses I mean, people who would make it seem like an invasion was happening) as a Favor meaning no ties whatsoever to him heck, some of the missions he asked us to do in ME1 were just that: using our Spectre cover to do Alliance dirty secrets (even as a Paragon do the Renegade negotiation with the Warlord and kill him, one of the responses has Hackett telling you that he doesn't know what you are saying if you accuse him of wanting him dead as all he instructed you was to negotiate and because of your Spectre status the mission record is sealed).


That A/K contacts Shepard if they are the player LI was honestly disheartening in ME3 as even two officers Shepard respected threw him to the flames. I love those messages Anderson says about Shepard in Citadel DLC, as he seems to feel responsible for the situation the player finds in.

Hackett has a lot of pull, he is a Fleet Admiral, Rear Admiral (Kohuto, Mikhailovich) is the lowest along with General (Williams and we know what happened to him) then there is Admiral (Anderson in ME2 or ME3 if he took the role of First Human Councilor and Mikhailovich in ME3 if the Council wasn't saved) culminating in Fleet Admiral (Hackett). He is one of the most influential people in the Alliance while there are other Fleet Admirals HE kept the Alliance from mobilizing against Shepard and bring him/her to be six months locked up during the Collector Crisis. 
In my head cannon Shepard will stay with the Alliance to help rebuild and while he achieved the rank of Admiral he is taking on high risk assignments to get an retirement with pension and benefits but because of his mental status they are keeping him from more active battlefields and are using his Spectre experience to train the next round of candidates (Miranda is an automatic Spectre choice and unlike Vega doesn't need that training). He'll likely keep getting paged to deal with difficult situations for his Spectre status but he tells himself he will now care for his family while Williams continues her career.

SA ranks: masseffect.fandom.com/wiki/Codex/Humanity_and_the_Systems_Alliance#Systems_Alliance:_Military_Ranks 

Good point, many people have stated that Mass Effect 3 issues started with ME2: Bioware went for a more compressed story and while if helped streamline a lot of situations it also meant that things like the 2 years, A/K only relegated to a cameo appearance, Bioware ignored the Reapers until Arrival DLC and more things that needed to be bull rushed in ME3.
Most of the character development was great, for the ones who joined you and Liara and Wrex, but EE got left in the dumpster.

I agree on ME1. They probably had no idea if it was really going to take off. It went better than expected but I think at this point they got gobbled up by EA. Plenty have said, and I agree, that the basic outline of ME2 would have worked better as ME1. We face a threat (Collectors) and learn it's just the tip of the iceberg. In fact, "Harbinger" even works better as the first Reaper we see. Arrival DLC still happens in the repositioned game and that's when we learn what we're really facing. The Reapers fail to get through the Alpha Relay - the name even works best since, y'know, "first" and all.

Next game we have Sovereign come along. It was either there already or somehow made it ahead of the others. It starts indoctrinating, with Saren being its primary agent. Events move along similarly. At this point we could still have Cerberus enter. If the Council and Alliance continued their stupidity, and considered the defeat of the Collectors as the end of the threat, means Shepard has to look elsewhere. I'd skip the whole Space Jesus thing but either way Shepard would align with Cerberus on this issue.

ME3 proceeds pretty much the same, though we could obviously fix the endings.

I know this thread kind of died... but... back in ME1... imagine after Udina locked out the Normandy if Anderson did nothing? And you and your team just enjoyed a nice day chilling on the Citadel knocking back a few brews. The Saren attacked and came through that "conduit". You were there already. You could have stopped him and taken out his Geth right there. He might not have even made it to the control panel.