There's something shady about the Andromeda Initiative - Minius GC

The problem with Cerberus is that they are basically lazy plot writing / deus ex machina as and when the plot required them.
They do not fit into the universe as described - let's not forget this is a organisation who:
- raises someone from the dead
- finds and investigates a reaper, establishing a research Base
- manages to go through the omega4 relay again and salvage the human reaper
- is involved with, and then builds, two of the most advanced ships in the galaxy
- has numerous secret bases, space stations and research centres
- manages to invade surkesh, the citadel, thessia, tchunka and Eden prime which st still having enough left over to take out omega and also invade Mars
- manages to build not only the most advanced robot - Eva core - but also EDI
- and is always one step ahead of everyone


And that's just of the top of my head. It's Humans Are Special cranked up to 1000 and is just ridiculous.

The thought of them being in Andromeda too? Ugh.

I don't disagree with this, but that's Bioware's own damn fault for writing themselves into a hole. 

As the universe of Mass Effect stands, there would be absolutely no reason for them not to be a part of the Ai. To include them is to risk repeating past mistakes. To omit them is to blatantly ignore what Cerberus was and is. 

At the very least, TIM isn't around anymore. Whoever would be involved with Cerberus in the Ai would most certainly not be anywhere near as resourceful. 

It isn't necessarily illogical. TIM likes to have personal oversight of every Cerberus activities, and he obviously wouldn't be able to in Andromeda. So, even if Cerberus agents, or people sharing Cerberus ideals did join the Initiative, you'd be stuck with not-Cerberus people and yet again the topic of human supremacism. Not interested, sorry.

Lol, absolutely not. Magic IS the explanation for fantasy. That doesn't work in Sci-Fi. 

You could, but it would lessen the impact significantly. 

I don't believe for a second that TIM personally oversees every single operation in Cerberus. They're much too large. It would actually be impossible. 

Yes, but the Andromeda Initiative isn't an entire galaxy. It's not even the population of a single planet. You could very well just have a single team. Even more so, if Cora is actually related to TIM at all. Why wouldn't he trust her to run an operation like that? 

I disagree. Cerberus has one motive, and the Ai would serve that motive too well to be overlooked. 

Really, it doesn't work in Sci-fi? Well, then mass effect fields, eezo must be true then, biotics as well. The very foundation of space travel and what makes the games happen.

Well, if you are now putting you're perspective and opinion into a discussion trying to argue with that and even disregarding in-game facts, there's really not point in continuing. We won't get anywhere.


 

Yes, it is called "Science Fiction", so not all of the elements are real, but they are explained. The point of Sci-Fi is to explain. You're making an impossible world seem possible. Fantasy does not concern itself with explanation. The explanation is magic. That's why Star Wars is considered fantasy. 

I've already addressed that in another comment. I'm incredibly skeptical that he actually runs everything himself. And even if he does, he's not going to be around in 600 years, and he knows it. He isn't going to let Cerberus crumble after he dies. 

Besides, EDI doesn't know everything. She's shown that to be true on several occasions. 

You are correct in that by their own logic cerberus should have probably built the ark themselves, already established 500 secret bases and have 1.5 million troops ready to go as soon as we arrive.

This doesn't mean however that they should do this as it is clearly ridiculous as both story and world building.

That's where you've lost me. Not including them is contradictory to the lore, but since including them was negative in the past, we should avoid them completely?

No, that doesn't make any sense. TIM isn't around anymore. The amount of humans in the Ai isn't enough for them to be nearly as large as they were before.

Andromeda is not the time to throw out everything from the original trilogy. It's the time to improve. Andromeda is a perfect excuse to make Cerberus believable, while still remaining consistent within the lore the OT set up.

There's no reason they wouldn't be able to do this.

Unless Bioware's writers really are just completely clueless, which I don't entirely doubt, if I'm being honest. 

I think he's another one of those who expects MEA to have some grand-spanning reveals that solidifies the trilogy or simply ties back into it. That just won't happen, I'm sure of that.

I do however think Cerberus could have a role as far as references goes. I like the idea that Cora Harper might be TIM's daughter in some fashion (think about how Miranda isn't really Henry Lawson's daughter in the traditional sense) and I like the idea of Cerberus being possibly the, or just one of, Ai's benefactors.

However that's about as far as it goes. Cerberus could've helped fund the project because TIM has a couple of things going on at all times because he's an opportunist who seeks anything that brings about human advancement and dominance in the galaxy. I get the impression though, that this guy thinks that if Cerberus is involved that's amazing because it means Cerberus will continue or something, but that would be lame because we know how TIM's story ends and anything between that would be filler, so a refernece or fan-theory-bait for Cerberus is great but that's all it should be.

 snow_White I can assure you some of BioWare's writers certainly are. I think they're all hired because they have a knack for sitting down and coming up with ideas and all of them have competent levels of prose, but I don't think every writer at BioWare is a storyteller or even knows the conventions of storytelling to the extent that a professional screenplay/novel writer should. There's definitely some Damon Lindelof in Mac Walters for example. He not only proved it with the ME3 ending (or ME2 as much as I hate to admit it) but having read the entire Foundation series too, you know that he doesn't really seem to understand why it's necessary to create characters in a story or why it's important to encapsulate a series of stories in a framed narrative. But I could be wrong, because writing is in many ways about trusting your gut sometimes and running with what seems to be a good idea and then you can stumble upon the meaning and figure out how to make a good 3-act plot about that. Sometimes you try to go on your hunch and end up finding out there wasn't as much to it as you thought. Good writers plot and plan their story to a T before actually penning it out but the way BioWare works that can't be done because they always have to account for a player character that has a variying motivation and they have limited time and budget for level-designers and cinematic artists to realize what is written, and they've been on record many times saying they had to cut out vital context for the larger plot due to budgetary constraints. Buuut there are definitely some writers I've noticed have consistently not been able to really hit the nail on the head with their stories. That said they have still made nice characters.

Ignoring Cerberus is ignoring ALL the lore? 

"what Cerberus stood for. Betterment of humanity." At the cost of that humanity. Theres been numerous groups in history, and people that have "noble goals" but then they turn out to be just another horrible regime or a dictator. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

They better not be in the game, tough i cannot deny the hints so far, oh goddammit Mac.... *nearly vomits*