It actually makes more sense if Cerberus is behind the Andromeda Initiative

no. i love the idea and think it's great, it makes perfect sense. however, this thing is turning in to one big circle jerk, exactly like the indoctrination theory. the people who write mass effect are far too retarded and incompetent to ever be able to incorporate this into the main plot, and for that reason there will be no mention of any links to cerberus because to include that in the story would require brain cells, a luxury that the writers do not possess. you only have to look at the series so far to see for yourself just how retarded the writers were/are.

Verdict: control ending.

hahahaha...what?! cerberus wasn't around at the beginning of the initiateive?! cerberus has been around for far longer than the initiative. by the time the initiative was born, cerberus was already well established and had been around for a very, very long time. cerberus came into existence during the very early periods of humanity joining the galactic community. may have even existed in some other form long before that. 

This ^

I actually want Cerberus to be involved, if only because I can't believe that they would be so disinterested in the AI as to ignore it. However, I want their involvement to be relatively passive and completely divorced from the main plot.

And I reeeeeeeeeeeeally don't want Cora to be a Cerberus agent.

I'm almost shocked by the amount of people who don't want or think Cerberus is involved. I think you guys are setting yourselves up for disappointment, even though you really shouldn't. Given what we know about Cerberus, it would be bad writing that they wouldn't be involved in the Andromeda Initiative in some way. I'm gonna repost something I wrote in another thread:

What is Cerberus? They are a human splinter group, who's goal is the advancement of humanity at whatever cost. That's the quick and simple definition of them right? Well there are a few things I would like to note, based on what we've seen so far:

1. Based on his bio Alec Ryder became interested in Artificial Intelligence as a means of human advancement.
2. Cora Harper shares the same last name as The Illusive Man. She is also Alec's 2nd in command.
3. The Andromeda Initiative is not a branch of the human military.
4. The Human Arc is operated by an AI named SAM.

The chances of all these things being a coincidence, is very slim. Given the experiments we saw Cerberus run in ME1 and ME2, going to another galaxy to discover new technology, would be the kind of thing Cerberus would leap at without hesitation.

Do not underestimate the power of bad writing.

I'm not saying it's impossible that the writers derped up, but the mere fact that they gave Cora the last name of Harper, is enough to raise an eyebrow. You don't give a character the same last name as one of the series main antagonists, and have no relation. That's just confusing for the sake of confusing. It wouldn't add anything to the story to do something like that.

I think it's likely Cerberus is involved, but we'll just have to wait and see. Bioware aren't always very consistent.

Personally though, I hope not. At the very least, I hope they only have a very minor role in the plot that doesn't swallow up half the story (as interesting it was in the original trilogy); and at the most, I hope they don't exist at all in Andromeda, we need something a bit more fresh instead of "Oh no, it's Tim again!"

The AI is an independent multi-species project, it's not Alliance and not explicitly Cerberus (though it is always possible they could have secret operatives inside).

Bioware has stated that Cerberus is not involved with the Andromeda Initiative.

God, please no Cerberus in Andromeda.

Aside from the fact that this small, splinter Alliance black ops team was able to field more power, influence, and covert intelligence than the collective resources of all Council species combined; a group that was featured in practically every single piece of secondary media related to this setting (and people say Liara is a writer's pet ); what more could be possibly said about this organization founded upon the notion of human dominance when humanity is already at the forefront of everything that happens in this universe?




Seriously, less than thirty years after being inducted into the galactic community and we've already been given Spectre status, and a seat on the Council; heck we can have an entirely human comprised Council in ME 2 and all the other species just bend over and take it. We're economically dominating the Volus, scientifically outpacing the Salarians, militarily outmaneuvering the Turians (apparently no one else was smart enough to think of the concept for a carrier class of naval vessel), and mastering biotics better than the Asari (one human experiment results in a woman on par with the most powerful of Asari matriarchs). Etc.

It is a human invention in the form of Medi-gel that can meet the widely different requirements of numerous xeno-biologies and be used as a universal medical treatment. Its humans, and human-lead corporations that are behind the discovery of the Thorian and Rachni; and it's our scientists taking charge of the research into those species; we have a human intelligence team that leads to the tracking down of the Shadow Broker, a human project that potentially could result in the control of every synthetic intelligence in the galaxy, and a human scientist that uncovers the nature of the Leviathans, etc.

And it's not like humanity is the only one tooting their horn either, the other species acknowledge our innate superiority as well. Mordin gushes about human "genetic diversity" and how we're pre-disposed to a wider range of skills compared to every other species in the galaxy. Balak, speaking for the Batarian Hegemony, nearly goes into full anime/emo mode when mentioning how jealous he and his government are at humanity's success. Liara (the second most powerful writer's pet in the series) fawns over us, at how much humanity has accomplished in such little time. Even the "God-Tier" species like the Reapers and Leviathans admit that there is something "special" about our species that set us apart from all other life in the galaxy. Etc.


Now I ask you, how redundant is a terrorist group like Cerberus, with "Humanity #1!" as their slogan and "The advancement of humanity above all others" as their corporate philosophy when all of those previous facts are attributed to our species? There's no need for "human dominance" because humanity is already dominating. We're the leaders of galactic government, the heads of finance, and our scientific & engineering prowess is the envy of the entire galaxy. Heck, even the the Andromeda Initiative has humanity in a commanding role, we're the ones calling the shots and the ones with the most political clout on that expedition. How can you legitimately fear for a lack of human supremacy (in-game) when confronted with these facts?

In essence, Cerberus is like one of those people you see out on the street with a sign on their front and back screaming "The end is nigh!" only in Cerberus' case, they're screaming "Hey! Water is Wet!" Yeah, we know, that's an undisputed scientific fact; all your doing is hogging precious screen time, and forcing the narrative to showcase something that's common knowledge for everyone else in the universe at the expense of other less human-centric elements.